NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 


JAMES  PBINNEY  MUNROE 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Dr.  ER1JEST  C.   MOORE 


J/ 


NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 


NEW  DEMANDS  IN 
EDUCATION 


BY 


JAMES  PHINNEY  MUNROE 


President  (iyio-n),  National  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Industrial  Education; 
Chairman,   Massachusetts  Commission  for   the  Blind;     Chairman,   Com- 
mittee on  Education,  Boston  Chamber  of  Commerce;  Secretary  of  the 
Corporation,  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology;  Author, 
"  The  Educational  Ideal";  Editor,   Walker's 
"Discussions    in   Education." 


GARDEN  CITY        NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 

1912 


ALL  SIGHTS  RESERVED,  INCLUDING  THAT  OT  TRANSLATION 
INTO  IOREIGN  LANGUAGES,  INCLUDING  THE  SCANDINAVIAN 

COPYRIGHT,  X9X2,  BY  DOUBLEDAY,  PAGE  &  COMPANY 


THE  COUNTRY  LLTE  PRESS,  GARDEN  CITY,  N.  V. 


M 


I 

o 


PREFACE 

f  •  \HE  fundamental  demand  in  education,  as 
in     everything     else,    is    for    efficiency  — 
•^      physical  efficiency,  mental  efficiency,  moral 
efficiency. 

The  boys  and  girls  in  school  are  the  greatest  of 
all  national  resources,  infinitely  more  important  than 
those  natural  resources  of  which  so  much  is  heard; 
and  the  province  of  education  is  to  conserve  these 
most  valuable  of  assets. 

The   potential   economic   worth  of   each   school 

\    pupil,  to  say  nothing  of  his  moral  value  as  a  house- 

L    holder  and  as  a  citizen,  is  enormous,  provided  he 

A    be  so  educated,  by  his  family,  by  his  environment, 

and  by  his  schools,  as  to  become  an  efficient  member 

£>    of   society.      And  to   be    an    efficient  member   of 

f      society  the  pupil  must  have  a  sound  body,  trained 

senses,  a  clear  mind,  and,  above  all,  a  well-balanced 

character. 

Therefore  the  supreme  aim  of  education,  acting 
through  homes,  schools,  and  the  community  in  gen- 
eral, should  be  to  foster  sound  and  capable  bodies, 


vi  PREFACE 

to  develop  well-trained  minds,  and  to  build  up 
strong,  self-reliant  characters. 

How  is  education  going  to  do  this?  By  putting 
fifty  or  sixty  children  into  uncomfortable  desks  in  an 
ill-ventilated  schoolroom  and  then  bombarding  them 
with  facts?  Far  from  it.  To  make  those  fifty  or 
sixty  children  really  efficient  we  must  treat  each  one 
of  them  as  an  individual  problem,  ascertaining  his 
vulnerable  points  physically,  and  remedying  them; 
finding  out  what  kind  of  a  mind  he  has  and  develop- 
ing it;  getting  at  his  strong  and  weak  points  morally 
and  building  out  of  them  a  sound  and  well-rounded 
personality. 

The  first  of  the  new  demands  in  education,  there- 
fore, is  for  small  classes,  so  that  the  teacher  may 
really  know  each  one  of  her  pupils  and  may  give 
him  a  true  education  suited  to  his  special  needs. 

The  second  of  the  new  demands  is  that  we  shall 
take  much  greater  account  than  we  now  do  of  the 
health  of  the  child,  by  seeing  that  his  eyes,  ears, 
lungs,  and  all  the  other  parts  of  his  physical 
machinery  are  sound,  or  are  made  sound,  and  that 
he  has  extensive  playground,  an  abundance  of  fresh 
air,  and  plenty  of  the  right  sort  of  games  and  plays. 

The  third  of  the  new  demands  is  that  we  shall  pro- 
vide genuine,  educative  exercise  for  the  mind  of  the 
child  by  giving  it  interesting  and  stimulating  work 


PREFACE  vii 

to  do,  and  that  we  shall  not  clog  and  deaden  it  with 
unrelated,  uninteresting,  and  unimportant  facts. 

The  fourth  of  th'e  new  demands  is  that  we  shall 
really  train  all  the  senses  of  the  pupil  so  that  he  is 
actually  able  to  use  his  eyes  for  seeing,  his  ears  for 
hea^ng,  and  his  hands  for  making  things  that  are 
a  credit  to  the  maker.  Too  many  pupils  in  the 
schools  seem  to  have  no  connection  between  their 
eyes,  their  ears,  their  hands,  and  their  brains;  so 
that,  as  far  as  efficiency  goes,  they  might  just  as 
well  be  blind,  deaf,  and  crippled. 

The  fifth  of  the  new  demands  is  that  education 
shall  put  its  chief  emphasis  upon  character:  that  the 
pupil  shall  be  trained,  in  school  and  out  of  school, 
to-day  and  to-morrow  and  all  the  time,  toward  self- 
reliance,  self-control,  self-respect,  and  self-denial. 

The  sixth  demand  is  that  the  main  emphasis  of 
schooling  shall  be  placed  on  the  social  side,  on  pre- 
paring the  boy  and  girl,  that  is,  for  effective  living 
as  a  member  of  the  community  of  which  he  finds 
himself  a  constituent  part. 

The  seventh  demand  is  that  when  the  pupil  gets 
tovbe  fourteen  years  old,  to  that  age  when,  if  he  so 
choose,  he  may  leave  school,  there  shall  be  some  one 
right  at  his  elbow,  some  one  who  knows  and  whom 
the  boy  respects,  to  advise  him  what  to  do  next. 

And  lastly  it  is  demanded  that  from  that  four- 


viii  PREFACE 

teenth  year  up  to  manhood  and  womanhood  each 
and  every  pupil  shall  have  a  wide  variety  of  oppor- 
tunity for  making  himself  (or  herself)  into  the  most 
intelligent,  the  most  efficient,  and  therefore  the 
happiest,  citizen  that  it  is  possible  for  him  to  be. 

Upon  these  theses  the  arguments  of  all  the  follow- 
ing chapters  rest.  Where  there  is  repetition,  it  is 
for  the  sake  of  presenting  the  theme  in  some  new 
light;  where  there  is  criticism,  it  is  of  what  is  not 
bad,  but  outworn;  where  there  is  exhortation,  it  is 
that  we  may  rouse  ourselves  to  the  needless  waste 
and  loss  of  that  greatest  of  human  resources,  that 
possession  out  of  which  civilization  has  come  and 
for  the  development  of  which  civilization  exists  — 
the  moral  energy  latent  and  easy  to  be  stimulated 
in  every  boy  and  girl. 

Acknowledgment  is  due  to  the  Educational  Review, 
the  World's  Work,  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  and 
the  Technology  Review  for  permission  to  use,  in  some 
of  the  chapters,  material  which  has  already  ap- 
peared in  those  magazines. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  The  Grievance  of  the  Average  Boy  Against  the 

Average  School 3 

II.  The  Common  School 26 

III.  Education  as  Prevention 42 

IV.  The  Demand  for  Efficient  Administration  .     .  57 
V.  The  Demand  for  a  True  Profession  of  Teaching  70 

VI.  The  Demand  for  Vocational  Training    ...  85 

VII.  The  Pressing  Need  for  Industrial  Education    .  109 

VIII.  The  Demands  of  Business 125 

IX.  The  Need  for  Real  Patriotism 140 

X.  The  Demand  for  Trained  Citizens    ....  156 

XI.  The  Demand  for  Discipline     ......  172 

XII.  The  Demand  for  a  Citizen's  High  School  .     .  186 

XIII.  How  the  Colleges  Ruin  the  High  Schools   .     .  202 

XIV.  The  Donning  of  Long  Trousers 214 

;  XV.  The  Mechanic  Arts 237 

XVI.  The  Educational  Bearings  of  Manual  Training  245 

XVII.  The  Russian  System  of  Manual  Training    .      .  264 


CONTENTS 

XVIII.    The  Demand  for  Breadth 271 

XIX.    What  Is  Demanded  of  the  Young  Engineer    .  281 

XX.    The  Genesis  of  These  New  Demands       .      .  290 


NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  GRIEVANCE  OF  THE  AVERAGE  BOY  AGAINST  THE 
AVERAGE  SCHOOL 

I  HAVE  seen  recently  a  high  school  in  a  large 
industrial  city  —  a  city  absolutely  dependent 
upon  the  quality  of  its  manufactures  —  in 
which  the  course  of  study,  the  teaching,  and  the 
whole  atmosphere  are  determined,  not  by  the  real 
requirements  of  its  five  hundred  pupils,  not  by  the 
paramount  need  of  that  city  for  industrially 
trained  young  men,  but  almost  solely  by  the  special 
demands  of  about  ten  pupils  who  are  going  some  day 
to  be  examined  for  entrance  to  some  college  or  uni- 
versity. Moreover,  I  have  seen  those  ten  pupils 
studying,  and  studying  hard,  not  for  the  sake  of 
education,  but  simply  that  they  may  pass  wholly 
artificial  sets  of  questions  in  an  entirely  arbitrary 
list  of  topics  established  by  men  who  know  little  of 
the  mental  needs  of  youth  and  absolutely  nothing 
of  the  genuine  educational  demands  of  that  indus- 
trial city.  Yet,  should  this  high  school  fail  to  get 
that  tiny  minority  into  college,  its  teachers  would 

3 


4  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

be  condemned  by  the  whole  body  of  their  fellow- 
citizens. 

Meanwhile  the  manufacturers  of  that  city  are 
spending  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  to  give 
the  youth  in  their  employ,  directly  or  indirectly, 
the  fundamental  training  in  accuracy,  initiative,  re- 
sourcefulness, "handiness,"  sense  of  responsibility, 
self-reliance,  and  "gumption"  in  which  they  should 
have  been  thoroughly  grounded  in  the  public  schools. 
More  than  this,  not  only  are  the  families  of  those 
youth  denying  themselves  many  comforts,  if  not 
necessities,  of  life  which  might  have  been  theirs, 
through  higher  wages,  had  the  boys  been  genuinely 
educated  before  going  to  work,  but  the  scale  of  liv- 
ing for  the  whole  community  is  being  proportionately 
reduced.  And,  most  serious  of  all,  the  economic 
future  of  that  city  is  actually  threatened  because  its 
workmen  are  mentally  and  manually  untrained. 
Yet  for  this  colossal  failure  the  school  receives  little 
or  no  blame.  Custom  expects  a  high  school  to  meet 
the  unreal  demands  of  the  college,  but  does  not  ex- 
pect it  to  prepare  for  the  real  and  pressing  require- 
ments of  daily  life. 

With  these  anomalous  facts  in  mind,  let  us  con- 
sider the  case  of  the  average  schoolboy,  a  type  repre- 
senting two  thirds  or  three  fourths  of  the  seventeen 
or  eighteen  millions  enrolled  in  the  public  schools. 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  5 

This  boy  is  born  into  a  family  which  absolutely  de- 
pends upon  wages  received  by  one  or  more  of  its 
members  as  workers  in  some  modern  industry. 
The  family  is  certainly  not  rich,  but  neither  is  it 
poor.  It  is  industrious,  self-respecting,  and  anxious 
to  give  its  children  the  best  possible  preparation  for 
a  useful  and  comfortable  life.  Such  families  are  the 
bone  and  sinew  of  America,  and  it  is  toward  their 
needs  and  their  strengthening  that  the  main  energies 
of  public  education  should  first  and  always  be  di- 
rected. . 

If  this  average  boy  happens  to  be  born  into  a 
family  of  farmers,  his  education  will  be  given  to  him 
largely  at  home  —  in  the  house  through  "chores," 
and  on  the  farm  through  planting,  reaping,  and  the 
care  of  animals.  As  a  rule,  this  training  will  meet 
so  well  his  fundamental  needs  —  provided  he  re- 
•  mains  a  farmer  —  that  the  fact  of  his  being  inade- 
quately taught  in  a  rural  school  by  a  woman  re- 
ceiving less  than  three  hundred  dollars  a  year  does 
not  very  much  matter.  His  schooling  will  be  poor, 
but  his  education  will  be  fairly  good. 

Should  this  boy  be  born,  however,  into  a  family 
depending,  directly  or  indirectly,  upon  manufac- 
turing for  its  living  —  and  it  is  with  this  fast- 
multiplying  type  that  modern  life  is  most  concerned 
—  he  must  look  for  almost  his  entire  education,  as 


6  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

well  as  for  his  mere  instruction,  to  the  teaching  of 
the  public  school.  Therefore  it  is  vital  to  him,  vital 
to  industry,  above  all  vital  to  society,  that  the 
education  which  he  receives  in  that  school  should 
prepare  him  to  make  the  most  of  his  subsequent  life 
as  a  worker,  as  a  citizen,  and  as  a  man.  This  com- 
prehensive preparation  the  average  school  does  not 
give;  and  because  it  does  not  we  are  not  only  squan- 
dering our  chief  industrial  and  civic  resources,  we 
are  stunting  and  wasting  innumerable  human  lives. 

Our  "national  ash-heap"  represents  the  burning 
each  year  of  almost  as  many  buildings  as  we  erect. 
Ignorant  and  careless  forestry  is  using  up  our  trees 
faster  than  nature  can  create  them.  But  these  and 
other  well-recognized  wastes,  colossal  as  they  are, 
count  for  little  in  comparison  with  the  needless 
squandering  of  our  greatest  resource:  human  energy. 
Society,  in  one  way  or  another,  has  spent  at  least 
$4,000  on  every  child  who  reaches  the  age  of  eighteen 
years.  Taking  the  annual  increase  of  population  as 
one  million,  this  means  a  potential  increment  each 
year  in  our  working  capital,  from  this  single  source, 
of  four  billion  dollars.  What  do  we  do,  however, 
with  this  stupendous  human  asset  worth,  if  rightly 
trained,  at  least  twice  this  four  thousand  million 
dollars? 

A  considerable  proportion  of  it  we  kill  off,  before 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  7 

it  reaches  twenty-five  years,  by  accidents,  half  of 
which,  by  mechanical  safeguards  and  by  education, 
are  easily  avoidable.  A  much  larger  percentage  we 
destroy  by  diseases,  two  thirds  of  which,  by  right 
training  in  simple  hygiene,  are  preventable.  A 
portion  difficult  to  measure,  but  obviously  large,  is 
permitted  to  go  to  waste  through  intemperance,  vice 
and  crime,  the  result,  in  most  instances,  of  ignorance 
or  mal-education.  And  from  the  balance  of  this 
human  capital  we  secure  really  effective  service, 
economic,  social  and  political,  in  the  case  of  only  a 
most  pitiful  minority. 

The  United  States  spent  upon  public  education  in 
1909  (the  latest  year  for  which  figures  are  available) 
$401,000,000,  and  for  hospitals,  reformatories,  asy- 
lums, poorhouses,  etc.,  it  undoubtedly  paid  a  sum 
almost  as  vast.  With  this  immense  outlay,  however, 
two  things  were  wrong:  The  millions  lavished  upon 
prisons  and  refuges  ought  to  have  been  almost 
wholly  available  for  education,  and  they  would  have 
been  available  had  the  millions  spent  upon  education 
been  handled  in  a  wise  and  businesslike  way. 

What  is  the  matter  with  our  school  expenditure? 
In  the  first  place,  large  as  it  is,  it  is  not  nearly  suffi- 
cient to  accomplish  what  public  education  ought  to 
do.  Any  manufacturer  knows  that  to  be  niggardly 
in  providing  machinery  and  brains  is  the  most 


8  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

foolish  of  policies;  and  that  many  an  establishment 
which,  by  expending  fifty  thousand  a  year,  invites 
bankruptcy,  would,  if  it  paid  out  twice  that  amount, 
command  prosperity.  In  the  second  place,  this 
expenditure  is  in  the  hands  not  of  experts  but  of 
amateurs  —  of  school  boards  whose  members  know 
little  or  nothing  concerning  this  stupendous  enter- 
prise over  which  they  have  autocratic  control;  of 
teachers  a  majority  of  whom  are  untrained  and  who 
regard  their  occupation  merely  as  a  makeshift;  and, 
in  too  many  cases,  of  corrupt  politicians  who  look 
upon  the  schools  as  so  much  added  loot  in  their 
sacking  of  the  modern  Babylons. 

Think  of  it!  A  business  capitalized  at  nearly 
eight  billions  of  dollars,  in  which,  therefore,  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  has  one  hundred  dollars  at 
stake;  a  business,  moreover,  having  branches  in 
every  city  and  town  and  in  almost  every  hamlet  of 
the  United  States,  is  carried  on  —  with  many  no- 
table exceptions  which  but  emphasize  the  general 
inadequacy  —  by  boards  of  directors  who  know 
practically  nothing  about  it,  and  by  agents  who  are 
largely  untrained,  underpaid,  and  temporary.  The 
business,  moreover,  is  so  unsafeguarded  as  to  be  at 
the  mercy  of  any  unscrupulous  men  who  may  desire 
to  use  it  as  a  means  to  their  own  political  fortunes 
or  as  a  quarry  for  their  "honest  graft."  This  would 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  9 

be  bad  enough  were  it  a  business  having  to  do  with 
mere  things;  how  infinitely  worse  is  it  when  the  enter- 
prise deals  with  the  bodies,  minds,  and  souls  of  boys 
and  girls! 

Even  the  best  school  boards  are  composed  of 
business  men  confessedly  unacquainted  with  edu- 
cation since  their  schoolboy  days,  while  the  worst 
are  made  up  of  "heelers"  with  eyes  glued  upon  the 
funds  available  for  graft  or  bribery.  Yet  school 
boards,  be  they  good  or  bad,  have  full  power  over 
school  officers  and  teachers,  the  provisions  for 
teaching,  and  the  courses  of  study.  They  deter- 
mine absolutely,  therefore,  the  education  of  every 
public-school  child.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that 
school  superintendents,  even  where  they  exist  at  all, 
are  most  successful  when  they  are  most  politic; 
that  teachers  have  little  genuine  interest  in  a  pro- 
fession dominated  by  the  untrained  or  worse; 
and  that  there  are  not  a  few  cities  in  which  are  to 
be  found  some  school  teachers  whom  no  decent 
girl  or  boy  should  know  ? 

The  confessions  of  experienced  school  superin- 
tendents would  make  disheartening  reading.  They 
would  be  stories,  mainly,  of  dealing  with  petty 
despots,  ignorant  of  education,  but  eager  to  exer- 
cise their  absolute  authority  —  stories,  therefore,  of 
intrigue,  of  the  flattering  of  pomposity,  of  catering 


io  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

to  personal  weaknesses,  of  wearing  away  unreason- 
ing prejudices,  of  yielding  to  improper  pressure  from 
those  having  life-and-death  power  over  one's  career, 
of  sacrificing  the  children  to  save  the  teachers  and 
to  save  one's  self.  The  confessions  of  teachers  would 
be  mainly  of  high  ideals  giving  way  under  the  pres- 
sure of  dry  routine,  of  petty  tyrannies  from  superiors 
themselves  the  victims  of  a  higher  tyranny,  of  indig- 
nities (if  the  teacher  be  a  woman)  proffered  by  al- 
leged gentlemen  screened  from  exposure  by  their 
vested  power,  or  (if  he  be  a  man)  of  false  but  dam- 
ning charges  brought  by  mischief-making  or  per- 
verted girls. 

This  atmosphere  of  repression,  of  petty  despot- 
ism, of  intrigue,  of  frequent  humiliation  is  the  very 
last  in  which  to  develop  initiative  in  teaching,  bold- 
ness of  experimentation,  readiness  to  meet  the  de- 
mands of  modern  life.  Where  even  the  daily  rou- 
tine is  full  of  quicksands,  neither  superintendent  nor 
teacher  can  be  expected  to  go  very  far  afield.  The 
margin  between  the  daily  wage  and  starvation  is 
too  narrow.  When  a  man  has  only  thin  bread  and 
scanty  butter  he  is  least  likely,  as  the  phrase  is,  to 
quarrel  with  it  by  showing  independf  _ice  or  seeking 
grounds  for  strife.  Yet  there  is  not  a  community, 
not  an  industry,  scarcely  a  family,  which  is  not 
suffering  grievously  for  want  of  what  right  educa- 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  n 

tion  alone  can  give.  And  that  right  education  will 
not  come  until  teachers  are  so  broadly  trained,  so 
professionally  in  earnest,  so  freed  from  ignorant  or 
improper  dictation,  so  confident  of  public  support 
and  commendation  that  they  will  be  true  leaders 
getting  youth  really  ready  to  meet  the  new  demands 
of  to-morrow,  instead  of  being  timid  conservatives 
holding  back  civilization  by  loading  it  down  with 
hordes  of  incompetents,  ill-taught,  untrained,  and  to 
all  intents  and  purposes  totally  uneducated. 

Relief  can  come,  moreover,  only  through  the 
school;  for  this  business  of  public  education  is  one 
of  the  completest  of  monopolies.  The  state,  through 
its  sovereign  power,  seizes  the  average  boy  when  he 
is  five  or  six  and  holds  him  until  he  is  fourteen  or, 
in  some  instances,  sixteen.  It  preempts  him,  there- 
fore, during  his  most  formative  years,  and  declares 
that  it  alone  shall  determine  how  he  is  to  be  pre- 
pared for  life.  This  is  as  it  should  be,  for  to  leave 
education  in  private  hands  would  be  fatal  to  democ- 
racy. Since,  however,  the  state  thus  exercises  a 
giant's  strength,  it  is  morally  bound  to  use  that 
power  wisely,  and  to  give  every  boy  and  girl,  as  far 
as  possible,  just  the  kind  and  amount  of  education 
which  that  particular  child  ought  specially  to  have. 
Does  the  city  or  town  (through  which  the  state  acts) 
commonly  do  this?  Far  from  it.  On  the  contrary, 


12  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

it  puts  the  average  child  through  a  routine  of  in- 
struction which  has  little  if  any  relation  to  his  real 
needs,  and  which,  in  too  many  cases,  leaves  him  at 
fourteen  just  as  helpless  and  almost  as  ignorant  of 
the  essential  things  of  life  as  when  the  school  took 
hold  of  him  at  five. 

-  When  the  child  enters  the  primary  school,  theo- 
retically he  begins  a  course  of  training  which  is  to 
develop  his  mind,  his  body,  his  aptitudes,  and  his 
powers,  so  that  each  year  will  find  him  a  considerable 
stage  farther  on  his  journey  toward  the  true  goal  of 
public  education  —  that  of  self-respecting,  self- 
reliant,  capable,  intelligent  American  citizenship. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  boy  enters  at  five 
or  six  years  of  age  the  first  roller  of  a  sort  of  gigantic 
squeeze-press,  which  will  endeavor,  during  the  next 
eight  or  nine  years,  to  stamp  certain  more  or  less 
useless  facts  upon  his  unwilling,  because  uninter- 
ested, memory,  and  to  mold  his  sacred  personality 
into  the  same  pattern  as  that  of  a  hundred  thousand 
other  little  products  of  the  pedagogical  machine. 
The  boy  wants  to  ask  questions;  but  in  a  "well- 
regulated"  school  it  is  the  teacher  who  asks  ques- 
tions, and  the  child's  part  is  to  give  the  answers  set 
down  in  the  text-books  furnished  by  those  publishers 
who  happen  just  then  to  "control,"  directly  or  in- 
directly, the  school  policies.  The  story  is  credibly 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  13 

told  of  a  primary  teacher  who  declared  that  kinder- 
garten children  are  a  great  nuisance  when  they 
first  come  to  the  primary  grades,  because  they  ask 
so  many  questions.  "But,"  she  triumphantly  con- 
cluded, "I  soon  cure  them!" 

The  boy  wants  to  exercise  his  rapidly  growing 
muscles;  but,  since  movement  upsets  order,  he  must 
learn  to  curb  his  nature  and  to  diminish  his  vitality 
by  sitting  still  in  a  hard  wooden  seat  before  a  desk 
that  holds  him  like  the  stocks.  He  wants  to  make 
something,  to  see  some  tangible  result  from  all  these 
weary  hours  in  school;  but  the  teacher  has  no  idea 
how  to  make  things,  the  text-books  say  nothing 
about  it,  and  young  people  who  make  things  are  apt 
to  be  exuberant,  eager,  full  of  questioning.  There- 
fore all  that  power  for  good  which  might  come  out 
of  the  child's  natural  desire  to  plan,  to  shape,  and  to 
build  is  allowed  to  go  to  waste,  and  the  constructive, 
creative  instinct,  which  is  the  mainspring  of  edu- 
cation, is  permitted  to  wither  away.  If  the  pupil, 
thus  thwarted,  fails  to  perceive  the  use  of  those 
things  which  he  is  permitted  to  do,  the  teacher  as- 
sures him  that  he  will  see  by  and  by.  When  that 
far-off  time  arrives,  however,  if  it  ever  does,  the 
useless  things  have  been  utterly  forgotten. 

The  average  boy  wants  to  work,  as  well  as  to 
play,  with  the  other  boys,  to  learn  how  to  get  along 


i4  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

with  them,  to  exercise  his  powers  of  leadership:  in 
short,  to  practise  democracy.  Instead  of  this,  he  is 
kept  isolated  at  a  separate  desk,  there  to  do  by  him- 
self a  task  simultaneously  allotted  to  all  the  class; 
and  cooperation  in  this  task  is  not  only  forbidden, 
but  punished  as  a  crime.  He  wants  to  organize  a 
miniature  society,  to  learn  how  to  behave  himself 
in  the  world  of  boys  and  men.  "But,  my  dear  child, 
this  is  school,  and  school,  you  know,  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent place  from  the  street."  Consequently  he 
loves  the  street,  because  it  is  so  different,  and  hates 
the  school. 

A  child  who  amounts  to  anything  wants  to  exer- 
cise his  initiative,  to  make  individual  plans.  That, 
however,  would  upset  the  lesson  schedule,  would 
make  it  hard  to  railroad  the  whole  fifty  children 
forward  into  the  next  grade,  would  preclude  treat- 
ing the  school-body  as  a  miniature  army.  Therefore 
it  cannot  be  allowed.  In  fact,  almost  everything  is 
done  in  the  average  school  to  repress  the  pupil, 
instead  of  to  expand  him,  and  to  substitute  the 
teacher's  will  —  and  an  extremely  nervous  and  er- 
ratic will  it  sometimes  is  —  for  the  boy's  will.  Con- 
sequently the  school  which,  theoretically,  exists  to 
develop  a  youth  and  to  teach  him  how  to  discipline 
himself,  succeeds,  in  a  year  or  two,  in  destroying 
the  poor  boy's  individuality  and  in  killing,  through 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  15 

a  process~bf  subjugation,  his  very  will  itself.  He  asks 
for  exercise,  mental,  moral,  and  physical,  and  we 
put  him  in  a  strait- jacket;  he  asks  for  experience  of 
life,  and  we  feed  him  on  predigested  —  and  neverthe- 
less still  indigestible — facts;  he  asks  to  do  something, 
and  we  tell  him  that  the  place  to  do  things  is  else- 
where, yet  censure  him  for  exploding,  out  of  school, 
into  mischief,  petty  crime,  and  worse. 

Who  has  built  up  this  educational  machine  which 
so  often  succeeds  in  defeating  all  the  proper  ends  of 
education?  The  school  boards  and  the  school- 
masters, in  order  to  meet  the  problem  of  dealing 
cheaply  with  enormous  crowds.  But  who  forces 
this  economy?  The  taxpayers,  who  will  not  under- 
stand that  the  thorough  education  of  the  whole 
child  for  real  life  can  be  carried  on  only  in  small 
classes,  by  professionally  trained  teachers,  under 
expert  supervision;  and  that  this  is  tremendously 
expensive  in  the  paying  out  of  money,  but  enor- 
mously economical  in  the  saving  of  human  life  and 
energy.  But  what  forces  the  schoolmasters  not 
simply  to  treat  the  school  children  as  an  army,  but 
to  keep  that  army  locking  step  and  marking  time? 
The  examination  system.  And  who  force  the  school- 
masters to  make  examinations  the  supreme  end,  in- 
stead of  a  very  subordinate  means,  in  the  educational 
process?  The  colleges.  It  suggests  the  familiar 


i6  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

nursery  rhyme  of  the  old  woman  and  her  balky  pig. 
The  college  begins  to  beat  the  high  school,  the  high 
school  begins  to  beat  the  grammar  school,  the  gram- 
mar school  begins  to  beat  the  primary  school,  and 
all  together  they  metaphorically  beat  and  push  the 
unwilling  pupil  for  eight  or  nine  years,  while  the 
law  holds  him  fast.  And  all  this  memorizing,  rote- 
work,  problem-solving,  and  gerund-grinding  mainly 
in  order  that  ten  pupils  out  of  every  five  hundred 
may  progress  to  college! 

The  average  pupil  does  not  want  to  go  to  college. 
In  nine  cases  out  of  ten  he  ought  not  to  go.  Cer- 
tainly, however,  neither  he  nor  any  other  youth 
should  be  sent  there  by  way  of  a  stupid  routine  of 
text-book  studies  devised  as  a  preparation  for 
passing,  when  eighteen  or  nineteen  years  old,  an 
assortment  of  foolish  examination  papers  prepared 
by  men  who,  most  of  them,  know  as  little  of  the  needs 
and  capacities  of  the  average  boy  as  they  do  of  the 
inhabitants  of  Mars. 

From  the  moment  he  enters  the  primary  school 
all  his  teachers  should  be  anxious  to  send  the  boy  to 
college;  but  they  should  really  find  out  whether  or 
not  he  is  fitted  to  go  there,  through  a  process  of 
studying  and  expanding  him,  of  giving  full  play  to 
his  individuality,  of  permitting  him  to  prove  that  he 
is  worth  the  highest  intellectual  training  which  can 


be  secured.  And  even  then  the  goal  should  not  be 
college,  but  life  —  his  life,  real  life,  the  life  of  the 
good  citizen  and  efficient  worker. 

Every  boy  must  be  given,  of  course,  certain  basic 
acquirements,  like  reading  and  writing;  he  must  be 
put  in  possession  of  certain  common  tools,  like  the 
multiplication  table  and  the  outlines  of  geography; 
and  he  must  be  subjected  to  so  much  military  disci- 
pline and  hard  routine  as  will  make  him  orderly 
and  obedient.  But  what  that  boy  goes  to  school 
for,  primarily,  is  to  be  developed;  and  never  yet  did 
development  result  from  continual  repression.  He 
should  be  taught  to  see  with  his  brain  as  well  as 
with  his  eyes.  He  should  be  trained  to  hear  with 
his  mind  as  well  as  with  his  ears.  He  should  be 
encouraged  to  do  anything  and  everything,  within 
reason,  with  his  hands.  Above  all,  he  should  be 
really  educated  through  training  him  to  coordinate 
all  his  senses  and  powers  so  that  they  will  work  ac- 
curately, unflaggingly,  and  intelligently,  so  that 
each  will  reinforce  and  strengthen  all  the  others. 
What  the  community  wants  in  that  boy  at  the  end 
of  his  nine  years  of  schooling  is  efficiency:  ability 
to  do  whatever  he  can  do  and  does  do  thoroughly, 
intelligently,  enthusiastically,  and  well. 

Every  school  child  should  have,  therefore,  mind 
training  and  book  learning,  but  he  should  have  also, 


i8  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

and  all  the  time,  body  training,  sense  training, 
manual  training,  and  industrial  training.  He  should 
be  taught  not  a  trade,  but  the  fundamentals  which 
lie  at  the  basis  of  all  industries.  He  should  not  be 
made  a  skilled  workman,  but  should  be  so  far  de- 
veloped that,  within  a  reasonable  time  after  leaving 
school,  he  may  become  capable  and  effective  in 
whatever  line  of  activity  he  undertakes.  Genuine  in- 
dustrial training  should  begin  at  the  first  and  should 
not  end  until  the  last  day  of  the  boy's  school  life. 
It  should  be,  moreover,  a  gradually  enlarging  and 
expanding  exercise  of  the  entire  boy.  Such  train- 
ing provides  for  the  pupil  that  physical  activity 
which  is  absolutely  essential;  it  places  before  him 
those  tangible  results  of  effort  which  the  child  must 
absolutely  see;  it  permits  him  to  exercise  and  to 
develop  power  of  initiative;  it  teaches  him  how  to 
work  with  other  boys;  best  of  all,  it  gives  the  child 
in  school  some  positive  and  definite  aim.  As  it  is 
now,  unless  he  has  before  him  those  remote  college 
examinations,  he  can  see  absolutely  no  educational 
goal;  and,  since  no  man  can  do  effective  work  with- 
out an  aim,  why  should  the  child  be  expected  to 
show  enthusiasm  in  walking  a  treadmill,  merely  for 
the  sake  of  exercise?  With  industrial  training,  the 
boy  can  understand  how  the  school  is  preparing 
him  to  be  a  worker,  to  take  his  place  in  the  great 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  19 

order  of  society,  to  reach  the  goal  of  effective  and 
honorable  citizenship.  It  is  a  social  crime  to  set 
a  boy  adrift  at  fourteen  or  sixteen  without  having 
given  him  those  fundamental  powers  which  will 
permit  him  to  become  at  majority,  not  only  self- 
supporting,  but  able  to  marry  and  to  rear,  in  decency, 
a  family. 

The  average  boy  has,  therefore,  a  serious  griev- 
ance, not  against  his  teachers,  but  against  society, 
which  forces  mechanical  teaching  upon  the  schools 
by  requiring  ill-paid  teachers  to  instruct  twice  as 
many  children  as  can  be  controlled  by  any  except 
military  methods.  He  has  an  added  grievance 
against  the  colleges,  which  largely  determine  what 
those  children  shall  study  from  their  very  first  en- 
trance into  school.  And  he  has  a  further  griev- 
ance against  the  industries  which,  knowing  that  90 
per  cent,  of  all  youth  trained  in  the  public  schools 
are  to  enter  their  ranks,  stupidly  acquiesce  in  a  sys- 
tem that,  if  it  prepares  for  any  life-work  at  all, 
fits  only  the  petty  salesman  and  the  clerk. 

These  grievances,  moreover,  are  shared  by  every 
citizen,  for,  sooner  or  later,  all  of  us  must  pay  the 
costs  of  this  colossal  and  needless  waste  of  human 
energy.  If  we  do  not  spend  money  for  the  right 
kind  of  education  for  the  average  boy,  we  must  spend 
much  larger  sums  on  jails,  prisons,  asylums,  hospitals, 


20  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

and  almshouses,  since  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
those  average  boys  become  incompetent,  diseased, 
or  vicious  men.  These  larger  sums,  if  we  chose  to 
take  the  trouble,  we  could  count,  for  we  would  find 
them  in  our  tax-bills;  but  they  are  as  nothing  com- 
pared with  the  sums  which  we  cannot  count  and 
which  we  lose  through  the  industrial  inefficiency  of 
untrained,  unambitious,  lazy,  half-sick,  maimed,  or 
stunted  workers  in  every  type  of  work. 

What  is  to  be  done?  What  every  modern  busi- 
ness does  when  it  finds  itself  confronted  with  possi- 
ble bankruptcy  through  preventable  wastes,  losses, 
and  inferiority  of  output.  It  calls  in  engineering 
and  commercial  experts  to  locate  causes  and  to 
suggest  reforms.  We  need  "educational  engineers" 
to  study  this  huge  business  of  preparing  youth  for 
life,  to  find  out  where  it  is  good,  where  it  is  wasteful, 
where  it  is  out  of  touch  with  modern  requirements, 
where  and  why  its  output  fails ;  and  to  make  report 
in  such  form  and  with  such  weight  of  evidence  that 
the  most  conventional  teacher  and  the  most  in- 
different citizen  must  pay  heed. 

Such  engineers  would  make  a  thorough  study  of 
(i)  the  pupils,  who  constitute  the  raw  material  of 
the  business  of  education;  (2)  the  buildings  and  other 
facilities  for  teaching,  which  make  up  the  plant; 
(3)  the  school  boards  and  teaching  staff,  who  cor- 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  21 

respond  to  the  directorate  and  the  working  force; 
(4)  the  means  and  methods  of  instruction  and  de- 
velopment; (5)  the  demands  of  society  in  general 
and  of  industry  in  particular  upon  boys  and  girls  — 
this  corresponding  to  the  problem  of  markets;  and 
(6)  the  question  of  costs,  which  is  almost  purely  a 
business  problem. 

Even  to  suggest  what  such  a  report  would  be  is 
presumptuous.  We  know  only  that  it  would  be 
voluminous  and  that,  if  fearlessly  made,  it  would 
shatter  many  illusions  as  to  the  scope  and  effec- 
tiveness of  the  average  public  school.  It  is  not  im- 
proper, however,  to  anticipate  some  of  the  main 
findings  of  such  a  report,  for  those  findings  are 
common  knowledge  among  students  of  education. 
Under  the  first  division,  that  of  raw  material,  the 
soundness  of  which  is  fundamental  to  the  whole 
industry  of  effective  education,  the  experts  would 
find  among  the  pupils,  most  of  whom  were  born 
healthy,  an  enormous  proportion  of  physical  im- 
perfection, such  as  stuntedness,  rickets,  malnutrition, 
impaired  sight  or  hearing,  adenoids,  hypertrophied 
tonsils,  decayed  teeth,  tuberculosis,  scrofula,  and 
other  organic  disease,  together  with  an  appalling 
array  of  nervous  disorders  or  of  tendencies  thereto; 
and  they  would  find  a  large  proportion  of  these  to 
have  been  induced  through  pure  ignorance,  which 


22  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

it  should  have  been  the  fundamental  business  of 
public  education  to  combat. 

Under  the  second  division,  that  of  plant,  the 
experts  would  find  two  leading  types  of  defect. 
They  would  meet,  on  the  one  hand,  with  buildings 
so  badly  placed,  lighted,  ventilated,  and  equipped 
as  to  be  unfit  for  habitation  or  for  teaching;  while 
they  would  find,  on  the  other  hand,  buildings  so 
magnificent  and  so  elaborately  furnished  as  to  have 
made  the  citizens  and  the  school  authorities  forget 
that  the  main  essential  in  education  is  not  the  house 
and  the  apparatus,  but  the  teaching  staff. 

Under  the  third  division,  that  of  personnel,  the 
educational  engineers  would  find,  as  has  already  been 
indicated,  inadequate  salaries,  incompetence,  lack 
of  professional  spirit,  and  a  general  disorganization 
due  to  the  fact  that  those  who  are  not  expert  in  the 
profession  of  education  have  autocratic  power  over 
those  who  are. 

Under  the  fourth  and  fifth  sections,  those  of 
methods  and  of  markets,  the  experts  would  note,  as 
has  also  been  already  indicated,  a  wide  divergence  be- 
tween what  education  is  doing  and  what  its  products 
are  called  upon  to  do.  Here  they  would  find,  proba- 
bly, the  largest  field  for  reform  in  bringing  the  work 
of  the  common  schools  up  to  the  genuine  needs  of 
modern  life  and  of  its  complex  demands. 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  23 

Under  the  final  heading,  that  of  costs,  they  would 
discover,  of  course,  much  waste  and  graft  (genuine 
and  "honest"),  much  petty  saving  in  vital  matters 
and  much  foolish  spending  in  non-essential  things. 
They  would  discover,  in  short,  most,  if  not  all, 
of  the  leakages  and  inefficiencies  seemingly  in- 
separable, at  present,  from  enterprises  conducted 
by  the  people  through  agents  chosen  by  political 
processes. 

Were  one  to  venture  to  forecast  the  main  recom- 
mendations for  reform  in  the  common  schools  that 
would  be  made  by  these  "educational  engineers," 
they  would  certainly  be  found  to  include: 

Much  larger  school  appropriations,  together  with 
better  systems  of  business  management; 

Much  smaller  classes  (not  to  exceed  twenty-five) ; 

Higher  salaries  to  competent  teachers; 

Better  training  for  teachers; 

A  reorganization  of  most  normal  schools  in  order 
to  bring  about  that  better  training; 

The  organization  of  the  teaching  profession  (like 
that  of  law,  of  medicine,  and  of  engineering)  for 
the  purpose  of  promoting  higher  professional 
standards; 

Limitation  of  the  authority  of  school  boards  to 
matters  non-educational; 


24  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

Establishing  of  school  "faculties"  with  authority, 
under  the  superintendent,  over  all  educational 
questions; 

Development  of  a  rational  and  diversified  school 
program  to  meet  the  life-needs  of  the  average 
pupil,  not  the  artificial  examination  standards 
of  the  colleges; 

School  buildings  simply  planned  and  furnished, 
but  properly  ventilated,  heated,  and  lighted; 

Ample  provision  for  physical  training  and  for 
health  teaching; 

Education  of  each  child  as  an  individual,  with  due 
regard  to  his  present  aptitudes  and  future 
prospects; 

"Social  education"  —  that  is,  the  training  of  the 
child  to  live  usefully  and  happily  with  and  for 
his  fellows;  and 

Wise  development  of  manual  and  industrial  edu- 
cation, leading  to  vocational  training. 

Every  one  of  these  recommendations  could  be 
carried  out  without  any  dislocation  of  the  present 
social  order;  and,  were  they  heeded  and  put  in 
practice,  the  mental  and  industrial  efficiency  of 
every  average  boy  and  girl  would  be  markedly  in- 
creased, the  percentage  of  life-failures  would  be 
immensely  decreased,  and  the  proportion  of  those 


THE  AVERAGE  BOY  25 

who  really  accomplish  something  toward  the  ad- 
vancing of  civilization  would  grow  by  leaps  and 
bounds.  We  would  then  conserve  what  we  now 
so  scandalously  waste:  the  most  valuable  of  earthly 
assets,  human  energy. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    COMMON    SCHOOL 

IN  THAT  interesting  book,  the  "Life  of 
Edward  Thring,"  the  mobilizing  school- 
master who  led  Uppingham  school  out  of 
such  Egyptian  darkness  of  trustee  incompetence 
and  hygienic  sloth  as  seems  incredible,  are  given 
a  number  of  letters  frankly  expressing  his  opinion 
of  the  American  public  school.  Thring  was  a  Con- 
servative in  politics,  a  Classicist  in  education,  a 
great  mind  exasperated  by  English  beadledom.  He 
is  a  biased  judge,  therefore,  when  he  declares  that 
"...  providing  teaching  for  all  the  poor  out  of 
the  taxes  paid  by  those  who  can  pay,  which  is  mis- 
called free  education  ...  is  dishonest  .  .  . 
is  a  mistake  ...  is  deadly.  Free  education," 
he  continues,  "  is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  '  free 
beer '  for  the  vicious,  paid  for  by  a  payment  of  the 
good  citizens  which  is  not  free.  If  the  tax  is  taken 
without  unanimous  consent,  then  it  is  sheer  robbery 
.  .  .  if  it  is  given  by  unanimous  consent,  it  is 
simply  the  old  fallacy  over  again  of  the  rich  man 

26 


THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  27 

preferring  to  breed  beggars  by  giving  shillings  to 
beggars  rather  than  to  bear  the  inconvenience  of 
listening  to  their  whining,  meeting  their  violence, 
or  investigating  and  correcting  the  cause  of  the  evil. 
.  .  .  Rescuing  the  pauper  child  from  moral 
death  is  an  utterly  different  thing  from  pauperizing 
the  poor  and  rich  by  maintaining  children  whose 
parents  can  and  ought  to  do  it." 

Thring  believed  free  education  to  be  dishonest 
because  it  allows  parents  to  shirk  parental  account- 
ability; to  be  a  mistake  because  it  tends  to  put 
amateurs  in  control  of  education;  to  be  deadly  be- 
cause it  replaces  private  enterprise,  which  would 
be  interested  and  progressive  for  its  own  sake,  by  an 
irregular,  fickle,  and  timid  public  responsibility. 
He  acknowledged  that  the  common  school  can  give 
instruction  —  indeed,  he  advocated  free  schools 
for  teaching  the  elements  to  the  very  poor  —  but 
he  maintained,  rightly,  that  education  is  a  much 
more  complicated,  delicate,  elaborate  process  than 
is  involved  in  learning  to  read,  write,  and  cipher; 
and,  in  his  belief,  this  true  education  is  beyond  the 
power  of  any  present  democratic  state  to  give. 
Challenged  by  such  a  man  as  he,  it  becomes  us  to 
see  if  he  be  right,  and  to  inquire  if  our  free  schools 
are  providing  not  simply  good  instruction  but  a 
real  and  superior  education.  If  these  public  schools 


28  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

of  ours  are  not  doing  this,  if  they  are  not  giving  to 
every  child,  or,  at  least,  to  a  majority  of  them,  the 
completest  training  for  life  that  any  other  prac- 
ticable system  could  furnish,  then,  even  at  the  sur- 
render of  our  most  cherished  sentiments,  the  free 
school  should  give  place  to  a  fair  trial  of  private 
education. 

It  is  indeed  difficult  logically  to  justify  free  pub- 
lic schooling.  But  so  it  is  to  defend  many  other 
schemes  of  social  cooperation  adopted,  and,  most 
fortunately,  by  modern  statesmen.  Government, 
defying  economic  rules,  is  largely  a  question  of  high 
expediency.  We  hold  by  our  free  schools,  not  be- 
cause we  perceive  an  abstract  justice  in  taxing  a 
childless  man  to  train  the  many  children  of  his 
neighbor,  but  because  public  education  seems  to  us 
to  compass  two  desirable  ends:  it  gives  (in  theory 
at  least)  every  child  that  fair  chance  which  many 
parents  either  cannot  or  will  not  provide;  it  makes 
the  Republic  safer  by  placing  it  in  the  hands  of  men 
who  have  shared  a  common  schooling  rather  than 
in  the  hands  of  those  the  inequality  of  whose  for- 
tunes has  been  vastly  emphasized  by  unequal  op- 
portunities for  getting  an  education. 

Quite  as  much  for  our  sakes  as  for  theirs  we  re- 
quire all  children  of  certain  ages  to  attend  school 
and,  directly  or  indirectly,  tax  ourselves  to  pay  for 


THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  29 

this  free  teaching.  But  in  paying  taxes  and  in  vot- 
ing for  a  school  board  —  supposing  even  that  we  do 
the  first  cheerfully  and  the  second  with  some  shadow 
of  knowledge  of  the  candidates  —  we  are  fulfilling 
but  a  small  part  of  our  duty  to  youth  and  to  our- 
selves. There  are  at  least  two  other  obligations. 
The  first  of  these  —  since  we  compel  the  child  to 
go  —  is  to  make  sure  that  his  schooling  is  the  best 
obtainable;  the  second  —  since  we  contribute  so 
much  to  the  cause  of  education  —  is  to  make  cer- 
tain that  we  secure  the  equivalent  of  this  money 
in  the  quality  of  citizenship  which  the  schools  pro- 
duce. If  we  acknowledge  the  wisdom  of  educating 
every  child,  and  if,  not  simply  recognizing  it,  we 
actually  compel  it  and  set  up  a  system  against 
which  private  enterprise  is  powerless  to  compete, 
it  would  seem  but  plain  duty  to  make  this  com- 
pulsory education  humanly  perfect.  Even  failing, 
however,  to  recognize  this  moral  obligation,  it  still 
remains  extraordinary  that  a  nation  so  shrewd  as 
ours,  lavishing  millions  upon  free  education,  should 
not  look  more  closely  to  it  that  industrial  capacity, 
mental  and  physical  strength,  and  effective  citizen- 
ship result. 

The  simpler  duty  of  the  public  school,  that  of 
instruction,  has  been  always  understood.  Indeed, 
for  many  years  it  was  recognized  as  the  only  func- 


30  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

tion  of  free  education;  and  there  are  still  many 
citizens  who  have  no  idea  of  it  beyond  this  limita- 
tion. Those  among  them  who  have  given  any 
thought  to  the  matter  probably  will  maintain  that 
everything  beyond  bare  instruction  belongs  to  the 
home  and  to  the  church.  Truly,  to  these  two 
agencies  does  attach  a  work  of  ethical  and  religious 
training  which  none  other  can  do;  but  the  child's 
life  cannot  be  parceled  out  among  the  several 
agencies  of  its  development,  one  to  promote  its 
physical,  another  its  intellectual,  a  third  its  ethical 
growth.  The  boy's  education  on  all  sides  is  and 
must  be  continuous.  The  all-round  development 
of  the  child  demands  that  every  force  which  is  to 
have  any  permanent  and  valuable  effect  upon  him 
must  be  all-round  too.  The  good,  or  the  harm,  of 
the  parental  influence  comes  mainly  through  the 
informal,  unperceived  effect  of  the  daily  life  of  the 
home.  The  enormous  influence  of  the  streets  (and 
of  more  hidden  byways)  is  also  unconscious,  not 
being  recognized  as  educational  at  all.  The  school 
work  alone  has  been  called  education,  because  it  is 
tangible  and  confined  mainly  to  examinable  in- 
struction. But,  for  this  very  reason,  it  has  been 
narrow  and  of  limited  value.  To  increase  in  worth, 
to  become  of  real  interest  and  use  to  the  pupil,  the 
school  must  take  a  lesson  from  the  home,  from  the 


THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  31 

street,  from  the  daily,  passing  show  of  the  child's 
life;  must  make  its  interests  as  broad  as  those,  as 
susceptible  of  various  and  special  assimilation  as 
those,  as  interesting  as  those,  and,  as  far  as  is  possible 
under  its  necessary  limitations,  as  unconscious  as 
those.  So  long  as  it  does  its  full  duty  to  the  whole 
child  in  this  broad  way  the  school  need  not  'ask  jif  (it 
be  usurping  the  prerogatives  of  the  home  and  the 
church;  for,  if  they  do  their  full  duty,  they  too  will 
trench  equally  upon  its  territory.  Failing  to  have 
regard  for  any  but  his  intellectual  progress,  the 
school  will  have  little  interest  for  the  pupil,  will 
produce  almost  no  effect  upon  him,  will  make  no 
vital  contribution  to  his  real  education.  Either  must 
one  deny  altogether  the  principle  of  free  schools, 
or  he  must  agree  with  Thring  that  they  are  meant 
only  for  paupers,  or  he  must  acknowledge  that  their 
responsibility  goes  far  beyond  the  teaching  of  the 
three  R's. 

A  man's  real  success  in  life  is  determined  by  two 
things:  the  degree  of  development  of  his  faculties 
and  his  conduct  as  a  member  of  society.  It  follows, 
therefore,  that  the  two  main  ends  to  be  sought  by  a 
public  school  are  to  give  the  boy  command  over  him- 
self and  to  teach  him  how  to  be  a  useful  citizen. 
That  is  to  say,  public  education  exists  in  order  to 
develop  human  power,  and  the  kinds  to  be  developed 


32  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

by  a  school  are  two:  social  power  and  personal 
power.  The  school  must  do  the  most  it  can  to  per- 
fect every  one  of  its  pupils  in  the  ability  to  play  the 
largest  part  possible  to  him  in  the  life  of  the  com- 
munity; it  must  help  him,  also,  to  make  the  most  of 
himself.  Of  course  these  two  ends  of  education 
intertwine.  One  cannot  make  a  boy  a  good  citizen 
without  making  him,  at  the  same  time,  a  better  man; 
neither  can  one  make  him  a  good  man  without  pro- 
ducing, concurrently,  a  better  citizen.  To  make  a 
boy  perform  his  due  part  in  society  he  must  be 
taught  the  arts  of  social  life:  how  to  read,  write,  and 
cipher,  how  to  comport  himself,  how  to  maintain 
pleasant  relations  with  his  kind.  Moreover,  this 
body  of  upgrowing  youths  must  be  trained  and  ac- 
customed to  act  together,  to  feel  their  interde- 
pendence, to  see  the  interrelations  of  the  vast  social 
structure,  perfection  in  which  has  made  modern 
civilization  possible.  But,  more  than  this,  the 
school  must,  so  far  as  it  can,  train,  foster,  and  direct 
the  physical  and  moral  forces  of  every  individual 
child  toward  his  highest  individual  development. 

The  boys  who  enter  a  counting-house  or  factory, 
the  girls  who  take  service  in  a  shop  or  kitchen,  the 
citizens  who,  in  uncounted  ways,  maintain  their 
communities  and  support  the  sovereign  state,  must, 
as  a  rule,  know  how  to  read,  write,  and  cipher.  To 


THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  33 

do  these  things  well  counts  greatly  in  their  favor. 
That  so  many  do  not  do  them  well  is  a  serious  charge 
against  the  public  school.  These,  however,  are 
not  the  fundamental  qualities  which  employers  seek 
and  which  communities  require.  They  demand 
health,  character,  honesty,  truth- telling,  clean  living; 
they  demand  willingness  to  work,  readiness  to  com- 
prehend, quickness  of  adaptation,  fertility  of  re- 
source, vision;  they  demand  alertness,  vigor,  self- 
command,  dexterity,  and  muscular  control.  These 
things,  which  result,  not  from  set  lessons,  but  from 
self-discipline,  self-reliance,  self-knowledge,  deter- 
mine the  success  of  a  boy  or  girl  in  life,  and  these 
qualities  the  public  school  must  seek  to  develop 
through  every  means  and  every  force  at  its  command. 
Most  schools  give  the  child  in  a  reasonable  time 
the  power  to  read;  but  do  they  make  reading  a  power 
in  his  life?  Do  they  show  him  what  there  is  to  read, 
how  to  get  at  this  enormous  store  of  knowledge  and 
recreation,  how  to  absorb  the  author's  thought  by 
that  mental  grasping  of  the  sentence  the  outward 
evidence  of  which  is  an  ability  to  read  aloud  ?  Now 
that  the  flourished,  slanting  penmanship  is  being 
abandoned,  writing  as  an  art  seems  on  the  way  to 
resurrection;  but  do  the  schools  enable  the  pupil 
to  do  anything  with  this  art  beyond  inditing  a  clumsy 
letter  or  making  a  formless  bill  ?  Is  there,  after  the 


34  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

ordinary  grammar-school  course,  ready  under- 
standing between  the  brain  and  the  pen-holding 
muscles  ?  or  is  it  true  that  to  most  men  and  women 
of  ordinary  education  writing  is  real  mental  pain? 
And  those  weary  years  of  arithmetic:  do  they  result 
in  the  ability  to  use  the  four  processes  readily  and 
exactly,  do  they  enable  the  youth  even  to  keep  a 
cash  account  with  ease?  And,  as  to  the  logical 
faculty  that  these  often  involved  processes  are  said 
to  stimulate,  do  we  see  its  results  in  the  eagerness 
with  which  thousands  of  our  fellow-citizens  will 
embrace  any  fallacy,  be  it  only  preached  by  their 
party  newspaper  or  expounded  by  some  glib-tongued 
rogue?  What  effect  does  formal  English  grammar 
have  in  preventing  that  hideous  perversion  of  his 
beautiful  mother-tongue  in  which  the  average  man 
apparently  delights?  Does  our  school  geography 
dissuade  that  same  average  man  from  scorning  all 
other  nations,  their  thoughts  and  customs,  as  foreign 
and  therefore  foolish?  And  do  we  teach  history  in 
such  wise  as  to  breed  real  patriots:  not  shouting 
swashbucklers,  but  men  who  feel  a  deep  sense  of 
responsibility  toward  their  country,  who  will  not 
let  its  cities  be  the  prey  of  bosses,  its  legislatures  the 
harvest  of  cheap  politicians,  its  higher  places  the 
spoil  of  those  who  have  millions  with  which  to  pur- 
chase them  ?  The  simple  studies  of  the  elementary 


THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  35 

school  could  be  so  taught  as  to  give  this  grasp  of 
literature,  of  expression,  of  reasoning,  of  number; 
they  could  be  made  to  yield  a  real  knowledge  of  the 
world,  and  a  genuine  patriotism.  More  than  this, 
they  have  been  made  to  yield  these  things  over  and 
over  again  in  individual  schools,  both  public  and 
private.  But  the  instruction  given  in  the  usual 
public  school  does  not  so  result. 

Granting,  however,  that  every  year  shows  an  in- 
crease in  the  number  of  public  schools  that  do  rightly 
teach  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic,  using  them, 
with  their  attendant  minor  studies,  as  a  means  of 
education;  asserting,  as  I  am  ready  to  do,  that  in 
time  all  schools  will  reach  this  standard  of  efficiency; 
they  will  even  then  fulfil  but  the  lesser  part  of  their 
duty  to  the  state.  "What  is  the  education  of  a 
majority  of  the  world?"  asks  Edmund  Burke. 
"Reading  a  parcel  of  books?  No!  Restraint  and 
discipline,  examples  of  virtue  and  justice,  these  are 
what  form  the  education  of  the  world."  Self- 
restraint  and  self-discipline  are  what  public  edu- 
cation must  instil  if  it  would  rightly  preface  and 
forestall  the  work  of  that  greater  school,  the  world. 
Without  these  the  furnishing  of  mere  book-learning 
will  be  like  giving  dynamite  to  children  and  gatling 
guns  to  war-thirsty  savages. 

These  virtues  which  the  employer  of  young  men 


36  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

is  always  seeking  and  so  seldom  finds,  for  which  mu- 
nicipal life  is  crying  out,  without  which  the  nation 
will  perish,  does  one  get  them,  as  a  rule,  because  of, 
or  in  spite  of,  the  public  school  training?  Does  the 
setting  of  uniform  tasks,  with  penalties  for  their 
neglect,  either  uniform  or  gauged  by  the  passing 
temper  of  the  teacher,  develop  an  eagerness  to  work 
and  a  delight  in  labor?  Do  wholesale  lessons  ex- 
plained by  wholesale  to  sixty  children,  each  one  of 
whom  has  a  different  mind-content,  a  different 
means  of  apprehension,  each  of  whom  needs,  there- 
fore, special  leading  over  every  new  difficulty  —  do 
these  tend  to  promote  readiness,  quickness,  and  alert- 
ness? Nothing,  on  the  contrary,  could  be  better 
calculated  to  dry  up  that  intense  eagerness  to  know, 
that  grasping  after  new  ideas,  which  most  children 
come  to  school  with  and  which,  alas!  so  many  go 
away  without.  Do  desiccated  text-books,  rote-work, 
graded  lessons,  the  whole  abominable  system  of 
yearly  promotion,  result  in  that  quickness  of  adap- 
tation, that  fertility  of  resource,  which  are  the  very 
soul  of  civilization?  Is  honesty  encouraged  by 
the  usual  school  discipline  and  methods?  Does 
truth-telling  always  plainly  get  its  reward?  Is 
purity  fostered  by  the  promiscuous  herding  of  hun- 
dreds of  children,  old  and  young,  corrupt  and  inno- 
cent, in  the  same  building,  under  teachers  whose 


THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  37 

time  must  be  given  to  mint,  anise,  and  cummin 
rather  than  to  these  weightier  matters  of  the  Eternal 
Law?  Says  M.  de  Coubertin:  "Not  ignorance  and 
sloth  of  mind  threaten  our  younger  generation  so 
much  as  moral  inertia  and  atrophy  of  the  will. 
The  supreme  problem  is  to  cure  these."  This  moral 
inertia  can  be  overcome,  this  will  of  the  child  can  be 
developed  and  trained,  only  by  treating  each  pupil 
as  a  special  problem  to  be  worked  out  with  knowl- 
edge, with  sympathy,  with  tact,  with  enthusiasm, 
by  every  teacher  under  whose  control  the  child  is 
brought. 

The  bottom  fallacy  of  much  of  the  acknowledged 
inefficiency  of  public  education  is  that  equality 
implies  uniformity.  We  are  to  give  all  youth  an 
equal  chance;  therefore  let  us  put  it  through  one 
common  course  of  study,  therefore  let  us  give  it  a 
discipline  of  the  barracks.  But  this  is  not  to  secure 
to  children  an  equal  opportunity  at  all.  Whose 
omniscience  devised  this  uniform  course  which  is 
so  to  act  upon  the  antipodal  natures  of  John  and 
of  Patrick,  of  Marie  and  of  Tessa  as  to  give  them  an 
equal  chance  to  develop  into  their  very  best?  Who 
found  this  universal  solvent  of  all  the  oddities, 
stupidities,  and  personalities  of  a  townful  of  child 
nature?  A  uniform  course  is  the  very  embodiment 
of  inequality,  making  the  weak  weaker,  the  dull 


38  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

duller,  the  cross-grained  more  out  of  touch  with  the 
rest  of  mankind.  Such  a  course  may  suit  three 
children  out  of  every  twenty,  but  the  remaining 
seventeen  are  mainly  stupefied  by  it,  learning  only 
to  associate  what  is  most  disagreeable,  what  is  most 
useless,  what  is  most  quickly  to  be  forgotten  with 
those  school  years  during  which  it  was  vainly  at- 
tempted to  fit  their  tender  and  growing  individ- 
ualities to  an  arbitrary  mold.  The  only  way  in 
which  to  give  every  child  an  equal  chance  with  every 
other  is  to  provide  for  each  the  atmosphere  and  in- 
centives suited  to  his  particular  needs  and  nature. 
Then  that  nature  will  respond  and  grow,  revealing 
powers  and  aptitudes  inconceivable  under  the 
blight  of  uniformity.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  an 
"average  child."  He  is  a  fiction  as  absurd  as  the 
passionless  man  of  the  old  political  economy.  As 
well  might  one  talk  of  an  average  vegetable  and  sub- 
ject all  plants  to  an  unchanging  regimen. 

The  fundamental  principle  of  the  "new  education" 
—  which  is  as  old  as  India  and  Greece  —  is  to  de- 
velop and  strengthen  individuality.  All  men  are 
born  free:  you  shall  not  make  them  slaves  to  a 
fictitious  average.  All  men  are  born  equal  before 
the  law:  you  shall  not  make  them  unequal  before  the 
law  by  forcing  upon  them  a  common  training  which 
gives  those  few  whom  the  course  happens  to  fit  an 


THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  39 

enormous  advantage,  leaving  the  rest  substantially 
untouched  by  the  real  forces  of  education.  So 
much  of  the  military,  disciplinary  side  of  the  school 
as  promotes  solidarity,  makes  children  feel  them- 
selves to  be  social  units,  favors  the  impulse  to  activ- 
ity arising  from  mere  mass,  is  vital  to  the  state. 
The  marching  together,  singing  together,  playing 
together  (provided  the  play  be  judiciously  organ- 
ized) is  a  splendid  stimulus  to  social  and  civic  life, 
impossible  to  be  done  away  with.  Along  with  this, 
however,  and  all  the  more  strongly  because  of  'this, 
the  individuality  of  the  child  must  be  nourished, 
promoted,  and  developed  by  every  rational  means. 
Within  the  range  of  his  powers  all  health,  virtue, 
and  capacity  are  within  him  as  the  germ  is  within 
the  seed.  The  teacher's  business  is  to  stimulate,  to 
encourage,  and  also  to  prune,  these  elemental  forces. 
This  cannot  be  done  by  instruction  given  by  whole- 
sale, but  only  through  genuine  education  acting 
directly  upon  the  individual  child. 

No  startling  changes  are  necessary  in  the  free 
school  system.  Its  general  plan  is  admirably  suited 
to  American  conditions.  It  needs  but  to  be  altered 
in  this  detail  and  in  that,  in  the  expansion  of  this 
principle  and  in  the  suppression  of  that  practice. 
We  must,  however,  do  away  with  the  curse  of  uni- 
formity, allowing,  instead,  full  play  to  individuality; 


40  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

we  must,  furthermore,  fit  the  means  and  methods 
of  the  school  to  the  real  needs  of  the  future  worker 
and  citizen;  and  we  must,  in  addition,  make  the 
profession  of  teaching  self-respecting  by  releasing 
it  from  its  present  bondage  to  amateurs:  to  well- 
intentioned  but  inexpert  school  boards  who  are 
jauntily  settling  pedagogical  problems  that  appall 
trained  experts.  The  teachers,  if  they  are  to  teach 
from  themselves  instead  of  from  prescribed  text- 
books, must  have  a  larger  share  in  the  control  and 
development  of  schools,  and  must  be  so  trained  and 
stimulated  as  to  be  fit  to  assume  that  larger  share. 
Not  elaborate  buildings,  or  reformed  courses  of 
study,  or  wiser  supervision,  will,  of  themselves,  make 
the  new  education  succeed  —  it  will  be  the  teachers ; 
and  if  this  vast  responsibility  rests  upon  them,  with 
them  must  rest  also  power  and  initiative,  in  them 
must  appear  professional  pride  far  beyond  what 
they  possess  to-day. 

These  fine,  great  schoolhouses,  with  all  modern 
devices  —  provided  their  ventilating  systems  work, 
their  floors  are  kept  clean,  and  their  rooms  are  not 
overcrowded  —  are  admirable;  but  they  do  not  in 
themselves  educate.  The  complicated  apparatus, 
the  works  of  art,  the  libraries,  with  which  many  of 
these  schoolhouses  are  filled,  again  are  admirable; 
but  in  themselves  they  are  mere  sticks  and  stones. 


THE  COMMON  SCHOOL  41 

The  subdivision  of  labor  among  teachers,  the  call- 
ing in  of  specialists,  the  elaboration  of  methods 
of  teaching  are  —  sometimes  —  excellent;  but  they 
are  but  the  husks  of  real  education.  Psychological 
laboratories,  child-study,  the  heaping  up  of  great 
masses  of  pedagogical  data  are  also,  when  backed 
by  real  knowledge,  excellent;  but  they  are  only 
minor  helps  to  a  real  education.  Pile  buildings, 
apparatus,  methods,  psychological  subtleties  high 
as  Ossa  on  Pelion  and  there  will  result  no  better 
education  than  was  given  in  the  ancient  district 
school  unless  behind  this  complexity  of  educational 
machinery  are  real  teachers  knowing  how  to  teach 
and  with  time  to  do  true,  individual  teaching.  The 
more  we  elaborate  education,  the  more  time  we 
spend  on  pedagogical  minutiae,  the  more  we  load 
ourselves  down  with  apparatus,  the  more  plainly  it 
appears  that  the  sole  essential  for  real  education  is 
the  educated  teacher  who  knows  how  to  teach. 
Upon  his,  or  her,  personal  fitness  rests  the  future  of 
the  country;  with  him,  or  with  her,  not  in  systems 
and  apparatus,  lies  the  solution  of  this  vexed  ques- 
tion of  the  public  school.  The  regeneration  of  man- 
kind will  be  brought  about,  so  far  as  the  common 
school  can  effect  it,  by  the  direct,  human  influence 
of  the  individual  teacher  upon  the  individual  pupil. 


CHAPTER  III 

EDUCATION    AS    PREVENTION 

THE  story  is  told  of  a  somnolent  parson  who 
prayed,  with  that  singsong  drone  which 
used  to  be  inseparable  from  true  piety, 
that  "Gawd  would  make  the  intemperate,  temper- 
ate, the  incontinent,  continent,  and  the  industrious, 
dustrious."  With  equal  lack  of  thought,  we  have 
added  that  treacherous  syllable  and  have  made  our 
systems  of  education  not  processes  of  formation  but 
processes  of  information.  Education  should  be 
superlatively  a  growth  in  morals;  yet,  largely  through 
our  sectarian  wranglings,  we  have  reduced  it,  in  too 
many  instances,  to  the  lowest  terms  of  unmorality.x 
The  most  important  business  of  society  is  the  moral 
education  of  the  boy  and  girl.  And  the  watch- 
word of  that  moral  education  should  be  prevention 
—  the  prevention  of  disease  by  building  a  healthy 
body  obedient  to  hygienic  laws;  the  prevention  of 
crime  by  confirming  the  innate  morality  of  every 
boy  and  girl;  the  prevention  of  poverty  by  ed- 
ucation for  efficiency;  the  prevention  of  insanity, 

42 


EDUCATION  AS  PREVENTION  43 

feeble-mindedness,  blindness,  and  all  the  rest  of 
those  preventable  scourges,  by  breaking  the  pru- 
rient silence  which  surrounds  the  greatest  function 
of  organic  life;  the  prevention  of  heathenism  by 
applying  genuine  religion  to  the  experiences  of 
every  day. 

In  doing  these  things,  moreover,  it  must  be  real- 
ized that  the  problems  of  our  sons  and  daughters 
are  not  those  of  their  great-grandfathers,  are  not 
even  those  we  faced.  Young  Americans  are  now 
not  only  of  the  great  world  of  nations,  they  are  of  a 
world  that  thinks  in  millions,  that  avails  itself  of 
strange  new  forces,  that  finds  the  air  too  dull  a 
medium  for  intercommunication  and  seeks  to  use 
in  place  of  it  the  subtler  ethers. 

We  cannot  wrestle  with  satan  as  our  fathers  did. 
Rather,  like  the  frontiersman,  must  we  carry  the 
pistol  of  decision  at  half-cock,  grateful  if  the 
devil's  eye  and  aim  do  not  forestall  ours.  Morality 
is  the  eternal  and  unchanging  arsenal  of  God;  but 
the  ethical  weapons  of  a  youth  to-day  must  differ 
widely  from  those  of  a  more  leisurely,  post-chaise 
time,  when  the  mere  fulmination  of  the  blunderbuss 
was  not  uncommonly  effective.  The  modern  youth 
must  have  a  nimbleness  of  judgment  resting  upon 
a  solid  fund  of  wisdom,  an.  instant  bravery  backed 
by  steady  courage,  an  adaptability,  a  resilience  of 


44  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

temper,  a  faith  in  self  —  together  with  a  knowledge 
of  self-limitations  —  scarcely  imaginable  in  the 
older  days.  To  know  anything  he  must  go  right 
to  the  heart  of  it;  to  decide  upon  anything  he  must 
focus  all  his  faculties  upon  it;  at  every  moment  he 
must  have  himself  in  hand  ready  to  concentrate  his 
forces  upon  the  next  difficult  problem  that  life  is 
certain  to  present. 

The  splendid  haste  of  modern  life  involves,  there- 
fore, enormous  new  strains  —  physical,  mental,  and 
moral.  It  requires,  as  a  consequence,  new  tem- 
perings  of  the  springs  of  thought  and  action,  new 
lubricants  for  the  continually  increasing  friction,  of 
existence.  These  we  are  gaining;  but  through 
such  a  tearing  away  of  old  conventions,  such  an 
opening  up  of  new  problems  and  difficulties,  that  the 
very  life  of  society  seems  in  jeopardy.  The  proph- 
ets of  impending  disaster  speak  to  willing  and 
bewildered  ears.  "The  sanctity  of  the  anciently 
accredited  ministers  and  forms  of  good  is  disappear- 
ing," they  cry;  "God  Himself  at  last  will  be  cast 
out  and  we  shall  be  beasts  again!  The  storm,  the 
lightning,  and  the  whirlwind  are  upon  us;  surely 
the  hot  ashes  of  divine  wrath  will  soon  begin  to 
fall!"  So  shouted  Carlyle,  clamoring  for  the  stern 
virtues  of  the  Cromwell  days;  so  to  the  end  of  time 
will  every  pessimist  lament,  terrified  by  the  light- 


EDUCATION  AS  PREVENTION  45 

ning  and  the  whirlwind,  heedless  of  the  everlasting, 
still,  small  Voice. 

Fifty  years  ago  we  were  predominantly  an  ag- 
ricultural people,  of  fairly  uniform  stock,  self- 
contained  commercially,  and  living  in  small  com- 
munities which  were  patriarchal,  simple,  genuinely 
democratic,  and  trained  in  that  flower  of  political 
schools,  the  New  England  town-meeting.  To-day 
our  cities,  our  towns,  even  our  farms,  are  purely 
industrial;  we  are  of  every  race,  creed,  and  previous 
political  experience;  we  have  been  launched  com- 
mercially into  the  seething  markets  of  the  world; 
the  family  has  been  largely  superseded  by  the  fac- 
tory; and  the  town-meeting,  for  our  vast  city  pop- 
ulations, is  a  thing  unknown. 

Half  a  century  ago  the  church  and  the  home, 
directly  or  indirectly,  gave  that  moral  background 
and  ethical  discipline  which  every  child  and  youth 
must  absolutely  have.  To-day  the  church  gets 
even  less  hold  than  the  school  upon  thousands  of 
young  people,  and  the  houses  of  many  rich,  no  less 
than  the  tenements  of  many  poor,  are  mockeries  of 
home.  To  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century 
the  old  relations  between  master  and  apprentice 
still  survived,  and  the  small,  simple  industries  were 
manned  by  alert  New  England  youth.  To-day, 
with  insignificant  exceptions,  a  boy  must  pick  up 


46  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

his  trade  education  as  best  he  may,  and  our  huge 
industrial  establishments  are  transmuting  poten- 
tial citizens  into  replaceable  parts  of  an  unthinking 
machine.  Before  the  Civil  War  our  people  was  a 
fairly  homogeneous  one.  To-day  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands are  pouring  in  from  every  corner  of  the 
globe,  many  of  them  hostile  to  all  forms  of  govern- 
ment and  knowing  no  distinction  between  liberty 
and  license,  most  of  them  needing  to  be  painfully 
taught  the  very  elements  of  responsible  citizenship. 
Fifty  years  ago  every  farm  and  every  household 
gave  the  child  daily  training  in  manual  dexterity, 
ingenuity,  self-reliance,  and  hard  work.  To-day  no 
city  and  few  country  households  give  any  oppor- 
tunity whatever  for  this  fundamental  education 
so  vital  to  the  child's  physical  and  moral  health. 
Most  significant  of  all,  the  development  of  ma- 
chinery, with  its  attendant  cooperation  and  com- 
bination of  interests,  its  resulting  wealth,  luxury, 
rapid  intercommunication,  social  congestion,  and 
complexity,  has  so  bound  society  together  that  the 
moral  ruin  of  the  meanest  youth  or  the  failure  to 
assimilate  the  humblest  immigrant  affects,  as  never 
before,  the  whole  civic  body. 

The  world  was  never  so  rich  in  material  wealth,  in 
energy,  in  altruism,  in  widespread  righteousness  as 
it  is  at  this  very  moment.  But  the  forces  of  growth 


EDUCATION  AS  PREVENTION  47 

and  uplift  seem  to  stand  half  paralyzed  by  the  rush 
and  complexity  of  modern  life.  The  educational 
authorities  are  in  a  whirl  of  doubt  and  experi- 
mentation, uncertain  how  to  act.  They  cannot  act 
alone.  The  solution  of  the  complex  problems  of 
modern  democracy  lies,  not  in  academic  education, 
but  in  more  democracy,  and  in  education  for  de- 
mocracy. All  good  forces  —  the  church,  the  home, 
the  school,  the  entire  body  of  citizens,  high  and  low, 
informed  and  ignorant  —  must  work  unitedly  along 
this  fundamental  line  of  advance,  this  social,  moral, 
really  common  schooling  of  the  people;  and  these 
should  be  a  few  of  their  common  aims:  to  preserve 
health  by  abolishing  slums,  corruption  and  quack- 
ery; to  develop  well-balanced  efficiency  by  training 
the  body,  mind,  and  hand  of  every  one;  to  make  each 
and  every  youth  self-supporting  and  self-respecting 
by  preparing  him  to  earn  a  useful  living;  to  fit  him 
for  true  citizenship  by  steeping  him  in  social  rights 
and  social  obligations;  to  prepare  him  for  intelligent 
parenthood  by  preserving  and  strengthening  sound 
family  relations;  to  make  him  a  good  neighbor,  a 
ripe  human  being,  a  complete  man  (or  woman)  by 
leading  him  through  the  humbler  and  the  higher 
virtues  to  a  knowledge  of,  love  for,  and  obedience 
toward  God. 
To  this  facing  of  the  facts  and  therefore  of  the 


48  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

real  needs  in  twentieth-century  education  has  the 
scientific  habit  of  thought  brought  us;  but  modern 
science  has  taught  us  more  than  this:  it  has  taught 
us  how  fundamental  to  all  social  advance  and  to  all 
true  social  education  is  absolute  honesty.  It  has 
made  us  understand  that,  just  as  the  man  of  science 
who  juggles  with  facts  is  a  fool,  so  any  individual  or 
group  of  organizations  whose  existence  is  founded 
upon  lies,  whether  those  lies  be  conscious  or  uncon- 
scious, inherited  or  newly  concocted,  is  doomed. 

A  main  evil  at  the  root  of  modern  life  is  the  same 
as  in  the  days  of  Seneca  —  the  evil  that  crime  needs 
but  to  be  successful  to  be  called  virtue  and  to  be 
held  up  for  emulation  by  the  young.  The  badness 
in  our  politics  (so  far  as  there  is  badness,  for  much 
of  it  is  highly  exaggerated),  the  corruption  in  busi- 
ness (so  far  as  there  is  corruption,  for  an  enormous 
majority  of  business  men  are  honest),  the  scandals 
of  society  (and  it  is  never  to  be  forgotten  that  the 
ten  vicious  get  into  the  newspapers  while  the  ten 
thousand  virtuous  do  not) :  all  are  due  to  elemental 
vices,  to  stealing  and  lying  and  lust,  which  corrupt 
the  social  body,  to  hypocrisy  which  tries  to  twist 
these  ugly  private  sins  into  a  kind  of  public  sanctity, 
and  to  moral  cowardice  which  fears  to  call  a  jewelled 
spade  a  spade. 

A  pressing  social   and    educational  problem   is, 


EDUCATION  AS  PREVENTION  49 

therefore,  that  of  moral  discipline.  Although  we 
have  outgrown  the  old  compulsions  of  a  personal  and 
wrathful  God,  we  must  have  some  categorical  im- 
perative with  which  to  galvanize  our  sluggish  wills. 
That  categorical  imperative  is  found  in  the  pregnant 
phrase:  "Obey  the  law."  Be  the  law  God-made 
or  man-made,  every  social,  political,  and  industrial 
evil  is  the  direct  result  of  some  infraction  of  the  law. 
By  an  appeal  to  this  fundamental  morality  of  law 
we  reduce  every  problem  in  life  to  its  lowest  terms 
and  make  its  fallacies  or  its  solution  as  definite  as 
the  rule  of  three. 

Fortunately,  too,  the  children  of  the  present 
generation  are  ready  to  respond  to  this  kind  of 
argument  more  quickly  than  to  any  other.  They 
have  drifted  wholly  away  from  the  Puritan  moorings, 
so  that  an  appeal  not  merely  to  revealed  religion,  but 
to  any  form  of  supernatural  authority,  has  with 
them  little  or  no  weight.  The  only  awakening 
appeal  to-day  is  to  natural  causes  and  logical  ef- 
fects. For  the  whole  spirit  of  modern  thought  and 
the  very  atmosphere,  no  matter  how  limited,  in 
which  modern  children  live,  are  dominated  by 
science,  are  alive  with  the  consciousness  of  phys- 
ical, social,  mental,  and  spiritual  evolution.  And 
the  first  rule  of  science,  the  absolute  foundation  of 
all  evolutionary  doctrine,  is  obedience  to  law.  If 


50  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION, 

it  were  not  certain  that  a  law  of  nature  is  the  same 
for  all  things  under  all  like  circumstances,  if  there 
were  ever  in  any  chemical  reaction  or  any  physical 
manifestation  the  slightest  failure  of  any  basic  laws, 
then  the  world  of  science  would  go  utterly  to  pieces, 
no  railroad  would  dare  to  run  a  train,  no  chemist 
venture  to  prepare  a  drug,  no  physician  presume  to 
treat  a  dangerous  disease.  Train  the  child,  then, 
from  his  earliest  years  in  obedience,  not  to  your  will 
or  to  mine,  but  to  the  will  of  natural  and  moral  law 
as  shown  in  history,  in  government,  and  in  the  world 
of  science,  and  you  give  him  for  his  whole  subse- 
quent career  an  ethical  foundation,  a  moral  touch- 
stone, and  a  genuine  spine. 

Three  lines  of  activity,  then,  are  being  pointed 
out  to  us  by  modern  science  —  activities  fundamen- 
tal to  all  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual  advance. 
They  are: 

(1)  The  prevention,  through  effective  education, 
of  inefficiency,  poverty,  disease,  defectiveness, 
and  crime; 

(2)  The  overthrow,  through  moral  training,  of 
social,  commercial,  political,  and  religious  sham; 
and 

(3)  The  building  up  and  exercise  of  unquestion- 
ing obedience  to  physical  and  moral  law. 


Si 

But  these,  it  will  be  said,  are  not  new  activities; 
the  battle  against  poverty  and  disease,  against  cor- 
ruption and  sham,  has  been  waging  from  time  im- 
memorial, and  with  what  comparatively  dishearten- 
ing success!  True;  but  never  till  now  have  we  had 
an  army  with  which  to  wage  this  war.  Never  till 
this  twentieth  century  have  we  been  willing  to  use, 
or  have  we  known  how  to  use,  on  a  large  scale,  the 
forces  of  true  democracy.  If  society  hopes  to  ad- 
vance toward  right  education,  real  moral  courage 
and  genuine  obedience  to  law,  it  can  make  that 
advance  only  through  those  who  are  to  receive  that 
education,  who  are  to  exercise  moral  courage,  and 
who  are  to  obey  the  law. 

If  we  are  to  overcome  poverty,  disease,  and  crime 
through  preventive  education,  whom  must  we 
educate?  The  people.  If  we  are  to  overthrow 
sham,  who  must  be  trained  to  know  the  false  from 
the  true?  The  people.  If  the  laws  of  God  and  of 
man  are  to  be  kept,  who  must  be  taught  willing 
obedience?  The  people.  An  autocracy  can  pal- 
liate crime  and  poverty  and  disease  by  building 
prisons,  almshouses,  and  hospitals;  but  only  a 
democracy  can  cure  those  evils  by  drying  up  their 
sources.  An  autocracy  can  abolish  one  hypocrisy 
by  setting  up  another;  but  only  a  democracy  can  get 
down  to  the  fundamental  realities  of  things.  An 


52  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

autocracy  can  enforce  obedience  through  guns  and 
jails;  but  only  a  democracy  can  voluntarily  obey. 

The  hope  to-day,  therefore,  of  real  social  advance 
is  through  a  wise,  widespread,  sympathetic,  and  real 
use  of  the  potential  power  of  democracy.  It  is  a 
power  so  stupendous  that  only  a  few  great  souls  like 
Jesus  and  Abraham  Lincoln  have  dared  to  invoke 
it.  The  demagogue  uses  it,  of  course,  for  his  per- 
sonal and  selfish  ends;  but  only  fitfully  and  very 
partially,  because  the  demos  does  not  really  respond 
except  to  great  moral  calls.  But  these  lines  which 
I  have  tried  to  indicate  are  superlatively  moral 
issues.  Not  one  of  them  but  has  in  it  a  fundamental 
appeal  not  inferior  to  that  of  primitive  Christianity 
or  of  negro  emancipation.  Incompetence,  poverty, 
disease,  defectiveness,  crime  —  all  these  are  house- 
fellows  with  the  common  man  and  he  will  fight  to 
the  death  if  he  can  be  shown  a  way  really  to  con- 
quer them.  And  if  that  way  involve,  as  it  does, 
moral  courage  and  submission  to  physical  and  ethical 
laws,  he  has  them  both,  born  of  suffering,  born  of 
patient  doing  of  his  duty,  born  of  centuries  of  en- 
forced obedience. 

That  is  a  splendid  phrase  of  Theodore  Parker's: 
"The  people  are  always  true  to  a  good  man  who 
truly  trusts  them."  And  its  wisdom  has  been 
demonstrated  over  and  over  again.  Just  as  it  is 


EDUCATION  AS  PREVENTION  53 

being  proved  by  medical  studies  that  practically 
every  child,  even  in  the  filthiest  slum  and  of  the 
foulest  parents,  is  born  healthy,  so  it  will  be  proved 
—  when  we  have  really  tried  democracy  —  that 
every  citizen  'is  sound  in  his  social  instincts.  He 
wants  to  be  decent  and  useful  and  self-reliant;  he 
wants  to  be  his  own  master  politically;  he  wants  to 
be  educated  and  to  have  his  children  trained;  he 
wants  to  live  in  clean,  beautiful  and  uplifting  sur- 
roundings; but  he  does  not  know  how.  In  his 
ignorance  he  falls  a  prey  to  his  environment  which 
has  been  created,  not  by  himself,  but  by  society  — 
by  us,  that  is,  who  have  arrogated  to  ourselves, 
because  of  a  little  more  money  or  education  or  in- 
herited power,  the  regulation  of  all  terrestrial  and 
of  many  spiritual  things. 

Moreover,  if  we  really  utilize,  as  we  are  timidly 
beginning  to  do,  the  latent  powers  of  democracy, 
we  shall  eventually  free,  not  simply  the  so-called 
"masses"  of  the  people;  we  shall  free  ourselves.  We 
may  not  suffer  the  actual  hunger  and  disease  and 
hopelessness  of  the  proletariat;  but  we  are  co-suf- 
ferers with  it  in  the  products  of  those  evils  of  the 
slum.  Therefore,  just  as  the  South,  through  the 
emancipation  of  the  black  man,  achieved  its  own 
economic  as  well  as  moral  freedom;  just  as  England, 
through  the  compulsory  granting  of  autonomy  to 


54  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

the  American  colonies,  gained  her  own  political 
liberty;  so  the  exercise  in  the  United  States  of  real 
democracy  will  give  true  democratic  freedom  to  us 
all. 

What  is  the  essence  of  real  democracy?  Simply 
getting  together.  The  wars  (whether  civil,  economic, 
or  religious)  which  have  devastated  the  world  have 
been  wars  of  mutual  ignorance,  survivals  of  the 
time  when  each  cave  man  fought  with  every  other, 
when  the  single  fact  of  unacquaintance  made  one  an 
implacable  enemy.  Growth  in  civilization  has  al- 
ways been  parallel  with  progress  in  mutual  under- 
standing. The  leader  in  this  process  of^getting 
together  has  always  been  trade;  and  to-day  the 
close  and  involved  relations  of  commerce  are  the 
most  hopeful  guarantees  of  international  peace. 
Business  knows  no  political  boundaries;  and  it  is 
business  that  is  leading  the  way,  not  only  out  of  that 
worst  relic  of  the  old  devil-beliefs,  war,  but  into 
those  forms  of  social  cooperation  which  shall  bring 
to  the  intangible  affairs  of  men  some  such  astonish- 
ing gains  as  have  been  secured,  through  mercantile 
cooperation,  for  their  material  interests. 

The  newspapers,  the  magazines,  the  ten  thousand 
clubs  of  amateur  reformers  are  filled  with  lamen- 
tations over  the  evils  of  politics,  the  corruption  of 
cities,  the  moral  dangers  swarming  around  the 


EDUCATION  AS  PREVENTION  55 

young.  They  are  filled,  too,  with  social  remedies, 
with  moral  panaceas;  at  the  least,  with  palliatives. 
But  the  single  cure  striking  at  the  very  root  of  all 
this  evil  will  be  found  only  when  every  man  under- 
stands that  he  as  an  individual  is  responsible,  and 
that  through  the  combined  efforts  of  all  citizens, 
not  through  laws  and  ordinances,  can  these  wrongs 
be  righted.  The  affairs  of  this  vast  social  partner- 
ship will  be  disentangled  only  when  its  members 
awaken  to  the  fact  that  they  must  be  neither  silent 
nor  sleeping  partners,  but  that  every  one  of  them 
must  do  his  share.  So  long  as  the  college  man  feels 
himself  too  well  trained  to  use  his  powers  in  helping 
to  govern  the  city,  so  long  as  the  merchant  thinks 
his  time  too  valuable  to  be  spent  in  developing  good 
citizens,  so  long  as  the  man  of  leisure,  of  refinement, 
of  brains,  is  content  to  shirk  his  share  in  carrying 
out  this  social  partnership,  just  so  long  will  all  those 
persons,  together  with  millions  of  lesser  individuals, 
suffer  from  the  waste  and  extravagance,  the  cor- 
ruption and  demoralization,  which  make  democracy 
still  an  experiment,  its  progress  fluctuating,  and  its 
issue  yet  in  doubt. 

To  get  together,  then,  is  the  first  step  in  the  proc- 
ess of  genuine  and  permanent  reform.  We  have 
always  seen  the  advantage  of  organization  for  politi- 
cal ends  and,  too  often,  have  become  slaves  to  the 


56  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

perfection  of  our  partisan  machinery.  In  the  last 
thirty  years  we  have  learned  the  advantages  of 
business  organization;  and  here  again  we  have  be- 
come, in  conspicuous  instances,  the  victims  of  what, 
if  properly  regulated,  is  one  of  the  greatest  blessings 
to  society.  Only  to-day,  however,  are  we  beginning 
to  see  the  even  greater  importance  of  social  organiza- 
tion if  we  are  to  develop  mental  and  moral  stamina 
great  enough  to  stand  the  strains  of  our  political  and 
material  advance.  We  cannot  organize  democracy 
into  a  single  political  party,  freed  from  the  evils  of 
partisanship,  because  seemingly  there  will  always 
be  fundamental  differences  of  political  opinion.  We 
cannot  organize  democracy  into  a  great  communistic 
trust  for  the  production  and  distribution  of  goods, 
because  apparently  there  must  always  be  differences 
of  what  our  forefathers  used  to  call  individual 
"faculty."  But  we  can,  if  we  choose,  organize 
democracy  into  a  great  social  whole,  working  for 
the  real  welfare  of  society;  for  the  fundamental 
questions  of  society  are  moral  questions;  and  on 
those,  when  we  get  right  down  to  basic  problems, 
there  can  be  and  there  are  no  genuine  differences. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   DEMAND    FOR    EFFICIENT  ADMINISTRATION 

THE  great  work  of  the  nineteenth  century  was 
in  establishing  the  machinery  of  education. 
Vast  and  efficient  as  that  machinery  is, 
however,  it  suffers,  and  suffers  incalculably,  from  the 
same  evils  that  afflict  most  of  our  civic  machinery. 

Every  school  has  upon  its  staff  magnificent,  self- 
sacrificing  teachers  whose  lives  are  a  blessing  to  their 
pupils;  but  perhaps  in  the  next  rooms  to  those  are 
teachers  who,  by  reason  of  natural  incapacity,  of 
ill-preparation,  of  age,  or  of  chronic  ill-health,  are 
totally  unfit  to  have  children  for  one  moment  in 
their  charge.  Some  schools  are  better,  others  worse, 
than  the  average;  some  school  buildings  are  really 
fit  for  the  housing  of  children,  others  are  worse  than 
unfit;  in  some  cities  the  evils  of  the  present  system 
are  glaringly  obtrusive;  in  others  the  personality  of 
the  teachers,  the  interest  of  the  parents,  or  the 
qualifications  of  the  committee  members  may  have 
largely  overcome  the  defects  of  the  machinery. 
Any  criticism  that  may  be  made  must  be  general 

57 


58  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

and,  like  all  generalizations,  may  not  apply  in  specific 
instances.  But,  broadly,  it  is  safe  and  fair  to  say 
that  the  public  schools  of  most  American  cities  are 
diseased,  and  that  the  disease  which  has  fastened 
itself  upon  them  is  the  pestiferous  and  far-reaching 
one  of  petty  politics.  Members  of  school  boards 
are  chosen,  not  because  they  know  anything  about 
the  difficult  problems  of  education,  not  even  be- 
cause they  are  notable  men  of  affairs,  but  simply 
because  they  belong  to  a  certain  party,  because  they 
want  office,  and  because  they  have  done  political 
work  that  calls  for  reward:  and  how  reward  them 
more  cheaply  and  easily  than  at  the  expense  of  the 
taxpayers? 

A  school  board  constituted  as  are  those  in  most 
of  the  cities  of  the  United  States  is  an  anachronism 
in  these  days  of  sociological  knowledge  and  of  busi- 
ness organization.  It  is  a  monstrous  outgrowth  of 
the  old  town  school  committee,  an  excellent  thing 
in  its  place  and  generation,  but  as  ill-suited  to  the 
conditions  of  modern  city  life  as  the  town  pump  and 
the  beadle.  The  external  management  of  the  public 
schools  is  a  business  problem,  like  that  of  running  a 
bank,  a  railroad  or  a  factory;  only,  since  its  raw 
material  is  boys  and  girls,  the  right  running  of  it  is 
vastly  more  important  than  is  the  conduct  of  any 
of  these  other  things. 


EFFICIENT  ADMINISTRATION  59 

It  is  repeatedly  declared  by  the  advocates  of  ex- 
isting conditions  that  machinery  is  not  everything; 
but  there  must  be  machinery  to  carry  on  a  business 
so  vast  as  that  of  the  public  schools;  and  since  there 
must  be  machinery,  in  the  name  of  helpless  child- 
hood let  it  be  simple,  let  it  be  easily  run,  let  it  be 
understood  of  all  men  and  women,  let  it  at  least  be 
modern  and  effective.  Let  it  be,  in  short,  a  machine 
for  the  training  of  every  boy  and  girl  into  the  best 
citizenship;  let  it  not  be  a  huge,  cumbersome  politi- 
cal mangle  in  the  intricacies  of  which  too  many 
little  human  souls  are  injured  or  forever  lost. 

It  is  declared,  also,  that  it  is  better  men  and 
women  that  are  needed  in  school  boards,  not  better 
machinery.  True  again;  no  man  or  woman  in  any 
city  is  too  good  or  too  learned  for  the  important 
work  of  governing  the  schools;  but  can  one  examine 
any  great  enterprise  without  seeing  that  the  good- 
ness and  knowledge  of  the  individual  are  almost 
annulled  by  a  lack  of  system?  Were  the  great 
English  railroads  manned  by  angels,  and  had  not 
their  thorough  system,  how  long  would  their  passen- 
gers be  safe?  Were  the  great  mills  of  New  England 
to  have  absolutely  perfect  employees  and  yet  no 
business  methods,  no  placing  of  responsibility,  how 
long  would  they  continue  to  turn  out  salable  prod- 
ucts? And  has  not  every  American  painfully  in 


60  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

mind  the  experiences  of  the  Spanish  War,  where  the 
bravest  and  most  virile  soldiers  the  world  has  ever 
seen  came  close  to  utter  defeat  at  Santiago  and  re- 
turned to  their  country  human  wrecks  because  the 
machinery  of  the  War  Department  was  utterly  unfit 
for  the  task  of  waging  war?  If  we  would  have  bet- 
ter schools  we  must  have  a  more  businesslike  sys- 
tem of  carrying  them  on,  a  system  in  harmony  with 
the  needs  and  conditions  of  to-day,  not  with  those  of 
a  century  ago. 

What  is  the  fundamental  problem  before  a  com- 
munity? It  is  not  to  secure  the  teaching  of  this  or 
that  subject;  it  is  not  to  maintain  a  great  educational 
system,  as  a  system,  at  enormous  expense.  It  is 
to  devise  the  simplest  means  of  reaching  every  indi- 
vidual child,  of  keeping  him  for  a  proper  length  of 
time  under  the  most  invigorating  educational  in- 
fluences, of  making  him  into  the  best  possible  citizen 
that  he  is  capable  of  becoming.  Let  this  be  em- 
phasized, for  it  lies  at  the  root  of  the  whole  matter. 
The  public  school  should  seek  the  best  and  simplest 
way,  not  merely  of  teaching,  but  of  really  educat- 
ing, not  masses  of  children,  but  the  individual  child, 
so  that  he  may  become,  not  simply  instructed,  but 
ready  to  take  his  proper  place  as  an  active,  pro- 
ductive citizen. 

As  the  people  have  equal  rights  in  the  public 


EFFICIENT  ADMINISTRATION  61 

schools  and  as  the  people  pay  the  bills,  it  is  plain 
that  they  must  be  given  adequate  representation  in 
school  government.  But  these  representatives  of 
theirs,  being  but  trustees  of  the  people's  money, 
should  have  an  eye  single  to  the  judicious  expendi- 
ture of  that  large  sum,  should  be  directly  in  touch 
with  the  citizens  who  have  chosen  them,  should  act 
only  on  such  large  questions  of  policy  as  are  within 
their  knowledge;  should,  in  short,  be  simply  legis- 
lators, to  put  in  motion  and  to  regulate  the  ma- 
chinery by  which  the  objects  of  the  public  school 
shall  be  effected.  A  school  board,  then,  should  be 
chosen  largely  for  its  administrative  fitness,  entirely 
without  regard  to  its  political  affiliations;  should  be 
small,  so  that  its  plain  and  comparatively  simple 
duties  of  legislation  may  always  be  carried  on  in 
open  daylight,  in  committee  of  the  whole;  should  be 
fairly  permanent,  so  that  it  may  pursue  a  steady 
policy;  should  be  dignified  and  not  harassed  by 
trivialities,  so  that  men  of  the  highest  ability  may 
not  shrink  from  service  upon  it;  should  be  chosen 
not  so  much  for  what  its  members  know  (or  think 
they  know)  about  education,  still  less  for  any  deep 
familiarity  with  city  politics,  but  because  they  are 
persons  of  good  judgment,  of  wide  knowledge  of 
affairs,  of  deep  interest  in  the  city's  welfare,  and  of 
incorruptible  integrity.  Given  such  a  school  com- 


62  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

mittee  of  not  more  than  seven  members,  representing 
the  whole  municipality  (not  greedy  sections  of  it), 
and  the  education  of  the  people  would  be  car- 
ried on  in  the  interest  of  the  people,  the  city's 
money  would  be  spent,  every  cent,  for  the  up- 
building of  the  city,  and  the  administration  of 
public  education  in  America  would  be  something 
for  which  Americans  would  not  be  obliged,  too  often, 
to  apologize. 

In  an  enterprise  so  vast  and  affecting  so  many 
interests  as  do  the  public  schools,  the  prime  con- 
dition of  success  is  that  there  should  be  always  and 
everywhere  direct  responsibility.  The  school  board 
itself,  with  simple  and  easily  understood  duties, 
should  be  directly  responsible  to  the  people  who 
elect  it.  This  committee,  in  turn,  should  place  all 
the  administrative  and  executive  duties  connected 
with  public  education  in  the  hands  of  experts  di- 
rectly responsible  to  it. 

There  are  two  markedly  different  and  clearly  de- 
fined sides  to  school  administration:  the  educational 
side  and  the  business  side.  As,  obviously,  no  one 
man  could  supervise  them  both,  it  is  plain  at  once 
that  there  must  be  two  experts,  equally  responsible 
to  the  board,  equally  to  be  called  to  account  for  any 
deficiency  in  the  matters  under  his  control.  These 
experts  should  be  a  superintendent  of  education  and 


EFFICIENT  ADMINISTRATION  63 

a  superintendent  of  business  affairs,  or  more  simply, 
a  business  agent. 

There  is  little  need  to  dwell  upon  the  duties  of 
the  business  agent;  it  is  enough  to  say  that  he  should 
be  a  clear-headed,  shrewd,  honest  man  of  affairs; 
that  he  should  be  paid  an  adequate  salary,  and  that 
his  whole  time  should  be  given  to  the  care  and 
maintenance  of  school  buildings,  to  the  control  of 
the  janitors  and  engineers,  to  the  purchase  and 
care  of  supplies,  to  the  supervision  of  the  erection 
of  new  school  buildings.  This  involves  large  powers, 
but  necessary  ones  if  we  would  exact  large  responsi- 
bility; and  it  is  only  by  holding  one  man  to  direct 
account  that  we  can  get  the  school  buildings  kept  in 
proper  condition,  can  secure  adequate  janitorial 
service,  can  relieve  the  school  board  from  the  har- 
assing and  corrupting  work  of  buying  school  supplies. 

Upon  the  superintendent,  thus  freed  of  all  busi- 
ness detail,  should  rest  entire  responsibility  for  the 
educational  efficiency  of  the  schools,  including  the 
appointment  and  dismissal  of  teachers  and  the 
determination  of  courses  of  study.  Such  a  superin- 
tendent must  be  an  expert  in  the  science  and  art  of 
education,  must  be  a  man  of  broad  culture  and  wide 
views  of  life,  must  be  a  person  of  boundless  zeal, 
ready  tact  and  unflinching  moral  courage.  More- 
over, he  should  have  powers  as  nearly  autocratic  as 


64  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

it  is  wise  to  give  where  abuse  would  entail  far- 
spreading  mischief;  should  be  assured  of  tenure  of 
office  during  good  service;  should  have  an  active 
part,  though  not  a  vote,  in  all  meetings  of  the  school 
board;  and  should  have  supreme  control  of  and  final 
responsibility  for  all  disciplinary  measures,  including 
the  important  educational  question  of  truancy.  A 
formidable  task  for  one  man  to  assume;  but  no  larger 
than  that  of  many  administrative  officers  in  other 
lines  of  effort,  and  not  too  large  if  the  superintendent 
be  relieved  of  all  petty  matters  of  business  detail, 
and  be  permitted  to  devote  his  whole  time  and 
thought  to  those  great  questions  of  education,  of 
administration,  of  morale,  that  now  are  given 
partly  to  him,  partly  to  the  school  board,  and  mainly 
to  no  one  at  all. 

The  superintendent  should  have,  of  course,  as- 
sistants to  be  eyes  and  ears  for  him;  but  these 
inspectors  and  reporters  of  the  schools  must  be  di- 
rectly answerable  to  him,  must  have  such  powers 
only  as  he  delegates,  and,  however  freely  he  may 
seek  their  advice,  must  leave  him  responsible  for 
the  final  decision  of  all  matters  of  importance. 

Furthermore,  in  contemplating  these  enlarged 
duties  of  the  superintendent,  it  should  not  be  for- 
gotten that  there  are  forces,  now  scarcely  utilized, 
which  he  might  use  much  to  his  own  assistance  and 


EFFICIENT  ADMINISTRATION  65 

vastly  to  the  benefit  of  the  schools.  Among  these 
are  the  teachers  themselves,  the  truant  officers,  and 
that  more  intelligent  portion  of  the  public  which 
takes  an  interest  in  matters  of  education. 

Perhaps  there  is  no  greater  waste  in  the  working 
of  the  present  public-school  system  than  of  the  in- 
tellectual force  and  enthusiasm  of  the  good  teachers. 
Whatever  their  professional  training,  whatever  their 
zeal,  whatever  their  knowledge  gained  by  years  of 
experience  with  children,  they  must  still  teach,  in 
practically  stereotyped  ways,  what  is  laid  down  to 
be  taught  in  each  particular  grade.  And  they  must 
teach  this  matter  out  of  text-books  chosen,  as  a  rule, 
with  regard  only  to  that  thing  which  does  not 
exist  —  the  average  child.  A  teacher's  life  must  be 
spent  in  trying  to  mold  a  heterogeneous  collection 
of  pupils  into  one  pattern  in  time  to  send  them  along 
to  the  next  teacher  who,  in  turn,  must  repeat  the 
process.  If  any  teacher,  maddened  by  such  a 
wrong,  impossible  task,  rebels,  she  is  in  danger  of 
being  supplanted;  if  she  expresses  dissent  to  the 
superintendent  or  the  rare  committeeman,  she  is 
viewed  with  suspicion  as  a  faddist;  if  she  confides 
her  woes  to  her  fellow-teachers,  they  usually  counsel 
her  to  a  prudent  acquiescence  in  the  things  that  be. 
As  a  consequence  the  process  of  teaching  in  the  pub- 
lic schools,  instead  of  making  a  woman  wiser  and 


66  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

broader  and  more  influential,  tends  to  harden  her, 
along  with  her  poor  pupils,  into  a  narrower  and 
narrower  routine.  What  a  frightful  waste  of  energy 
this  is,  and  how  opposed  to  all  true  principles  of 
teaching.  Suppose,  for  example,  that  the  courses  of 
work  and  the  books  to  be  used  in  a  college  were  to  be 
prescribed  by  the  governing  board,  and  that  all 
originality  of  teaching  were  resolutely  discouraged; 
does  it  seem  likely  that  such  a  college  would  se- 
cure able  professors?  There  should  be,  therefore,  a 
school  faculty,  similar  to  a  college  faculty,  wherein 
courses  of  study,  methods  of  teaching,  text-books, 
and  the  thousand  questions  of  pedagogics  should 
have  free  discussion;  wherein  every  new  idea  should 
have  encouragement;  wherein  all  fair  criticism  of 
methods  or  books  should  have  respectful  hearing. 

Similarly  with  the  truancy  system.  It  is  now  a 
part  of  the  great  police  machine;  what  an  immense 
force  for  good  it  would  be  were  it  put  into  the  hands 
of  the  superintendent  and  made  a  part  of  education. 
As  it  is  now  in  most  cities,  the  main  result,  if  not 
the  chief  purpose,  of  the  truancy  laws  is  to  punish 
the  child,  instead  of  to  reform  him.  In  a  majority 
of  cases,  truancy  is  the  fault  not  of  the  pupil,  but 
of  his  surroundings;  yet  little  or  nothing  is  done  to 
improve  them  or  him;  after  a  number  of  warnings, 
he  either  drifts  out  of  sight  or  is  sent  to  a  reforming 


EFFICIENT  ADMINISTRATION  67 

institution  of  doubtful  efficacy.  Yet  it  is  from  these 
truants  that  the  criminal  class  largely  is  recruited, 
and  upon  their  proper  treatment  rests,  in  no  small 
degree,  the  solution  of  the  question  of  criminal 
reform.  The  public  school  has  splendid  opportu- 
nities to  catch  these  wayward  children  at  the  very 
inception  of  their  careers  and  to  make  of  them  decent 
citizens;  but  we  are  so  accustomed  to  disregard  the 
individual  child,  we  are  so  filled  with  the  notion  of 
the  pupil  conforming  to  the  system  instead  of  the 
system  adapting  itself  to  the  child,  that  we  almost 
deliberately  create  a  public  process  for  the  manu- 
facturing of  criminals. 

Finally,  were  the  public  school  system  made 
homogeneous  and  professional,  were  its  determina- 
tion to  shun  politics  and  seek  diligently  the  things 
of  real  education  made  clear,  how  many  intelligent 
men  and  women  would  the  superintendent  have  at 
his  command,  to  help  in  such  and  so  many  ways  as 
he  might  indicate;  how  many  parents,  now  seeking 
stumblingly  and  often  in  vain  to  secure  a  real  edu- 
cation for  their  children,  could  he  count  upon  as 
friends  and  allies;  how  increasingly  he  might  reckon 
upon  the  enthusiastic  cooperation  of  the  pupils 
themselves,  these  children  who,  now  dragged  un- 
willingly to  a  school  literally  for  the  masses  (since 
its  pupils  are  treated  only  in  the  mass)  would  then 


68  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

run  gladly  to  and  help  eagerly  in  that  school  for 
individuals  which,  through  better  teachers,  better 
methods,  smaller  classes,  more  intelligent  super- 
vision, would  have  become,  in  our  cities,  the  rule 
instead  of  the  exception.  No  city,  however,  can 
begin  to  reach  such  standards  in  education  until  it 
reforms  its  methods  of  school  government,  until  it 
places  school  administration  upon  that  level  which 
the  best  railroads,  the  most  successful  mercantile 
enterprises,  the  most  progressive  colleges,  long  ago 
reached. 

This,  then,  is  the  whole  framework  of  the  needed 
reforms  in  the  administration  of  our  city  schools. 
Such  an  enlightened  administration  must  have  a 
small  school  board  chosen  intelligently,  and  solely  on 
the  ground  of  fitness.  That  committee  must  con- 
line  its  efforts  to  general  questions  of  legislation 
(with  which  alone  it  is  wise  enough  to  deal)  and 
must  delegate  all  matters  of  business  detail  and  of 
educational  administration  to  expert  subordinates 
whom  it  must  hold  to  strict  and  direct  account. 
These  experts,  in  turn,  must  appoint  their  subor- 
dinates with  such  care  that  the  best  service  shall 
be  assured,  and  must  hold  them  to  such  accounta- 
bility as  shall  cause  that  service'never  to  be  neglected. 
Finally,  the  whole  machinery  of  the  vast  school 
system  must  be  so  simple  in  arrangement,  so  auto- 


EFFICIENT  ADMINISTRATION  69 

matic  m  its  checks  and  balances,  so  complete 
in  its  utilization  of  every  possible  good  force,  that 
there  shall  never  be  anything  hidden,  never  any 
fault  overlooked  in  the  multiplicity  of  detail,  never 
any  child,  no  matter  how  humble,  either  kept  out 
of  the  best  education  that  he  is  capable  of  assimi- 
lating, or  treated  in  any  other  way  than  as  a  sacred 
individuality  in  which  lies  the  infinite  promise  of 
a  human  soul. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  DEMAND  FOR  A  TRUE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING 

r  |  AHEORETICALLY,  free  public  education 
should  be  the  supreme  force  in  every 

•*•  community;  practically,  it  is  not.  Theo- 
retically, the  extension  of  such  education  should  be 
followed  by  a  higher  political  morality,  a  deeper 
sense  of  social  responsibility;  practically,  it  is  not. 
Theoretically,  the  teacher  —  spiritual  or  temporal  — 
should  be  honored  above  all  other  men;  practically, 
he  is  not.  Who  is  to  blame?  Mainly  the  parent, 
to  whom,  as  a  rule,  any  of  his  affairs  is  of  more  im- 
portance than  the  building  of  his  children's  char- 
acter. In  a  measure,  also,  the  community,  which 
gives  grudgingly  to  its  schools,  holds  them  in  little 
esteem,  underpays  the  teacher,  and  then  despises 
him  for  being  poor.  But  responsibility  lies  also,  in 
no  small  measure,  with  the  teachers  themselves 
for  failing  to  regard  themselves  and  to  exact  regard 
as  members  of  the  most  honorable  and  important 
of  professions. 

Teaching,  except  as  limited  to  colleges  and  uni- 

70 


A  TRUE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING         71 

versities,  is  not  yet  even  a  real  profession.  The 
ordinary  schoolmaster  has  little  of  the  personal 
weight,  of  the  sense  of  professional  responsibility, 
of  what  may  be  called  the  corporate  self-respect, 
of  the  lawyer,  the  physician,  or  the  engineer.  The 
traditions  of  the  teaching  guild  do  not  yet  demand 
a  wide  education,  a  slow  and  laborious  preparation, 
a  careful  and  humble  apprenticeship,  such  as  is  re- 
quired for  entrance  into  a  really  learned  profes- 
sion. A  broad  education  and  the  poise  of  mind 
which  follows  it  are  the  vital  needs  of  a  great  major- 
ity of  the  public  school  teachers  of  to-day.  They 
are  ceaselessly  complaining  of  a  condition  of  things 
which  is  indeed  grievous,  but  which  is  largely  of 
their  own  creation.  They  demand  high  place  with- 
out qualifying  themselves  to  hold  high  place;  they 
rebel  at  a  not  uncommon  attitude  of  contempt  or  of 
contemptuous  toleration  on  the  part  of  the  public, 
but  do  not  purge  themselves  of  the  elements  which 
excite  that  contempt;  they  accuse  the  parents  and 
the  public  of  indifference  toward  their  work,  but 
do  little  to  render  that  work  of  such  quality  as  to 
forbid  indifference. 

There  is  no  reason  —  except  in  negligent  custom, 
in  which  the  majority  of  teachers  acquiesce  —  why 
the  man  or  woman  who  has  charge  of  the  mental 
growth  of  the  child  should  be  satisfied  with  a  train- 


72  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

ing  less  thorough  than  that  of  the  physician  who  cares 
for  his  body,  the  lawyer  who  manages  his  property, 
or  the  clergyman  who  ministers  to  his  soul.  It  is 
idle  to  claim,  as  is  sometimes  done,  that  there  is  no 
profession  for  the  teacher  to  study,  that  the  art  of 
teaching  comes  by  nature,  and  that  if  there  be  a 
sort  of  science  of  education  it  will  filter  out  from  the 
mistakes  and  successes  of  experience.  The  body 
of  the  law  is  but  a  record  of  human  experiments 
and  mistakes  in  social  order;  medicine  itself  is  but 
the  crystallized  result  of  centuries  of  empiricism, 
often  disastrous,  upon  the  human  constitution; 
engineering,  founded  though  it  be  upon  a  science 
so  exact  as  mathematics,  is  the  net  result  of  an 
infinite  series  of  blundering  attempts  to  solve  the 
innumerable  problems  of  matter  and  motion.  But 
the  fact  that  these  professions  and  the  sciences  on 
which  they  rest  are  always  undergoing  change,  that, 
often,  the  accepted  truth  of  to-day  is  the  proved 
fallacy  of  to-morrow,  does  not  lessen  their  dignity, 
does  not  discourage  their  followers  from  long  years 
of  preparation  for  them,  does  not  justify  the  men 
of  these  professions  in  working  by  rule-of-thumb 
methods  and  haphazard  guesses  when  it  is  possible, 
through  study,  experimentation,  and  mutual  en- 
lightenment, for  them  to  work  by  known  laws,  in 
orderly  sequence,  toward  well-defined  ends.  There 


A  TRUE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING         73 

is  abundant  foundation  for  a  science  and  art  of 
education  as  elaborate  and  dignified  as  that  of 
medicine;  but  that  science  and  that  art  will  not 
rightly  develop  so  long  as  it  is  regarded  —  above 
all  by  the  teachers  themselves  —  as  possible  and 
natural  to  admit  half-taught  girls  and  youths,  who 
follow  teaching  only  as  a  makeshift  or  a  temporary 
means  of  livelihood,  to  full  fellowship  and  equal 
honor  with  the  completely  educated,  laboriously 
trained  professional  teacher. 

Were  there,  however,  no  science  and  art  of  teach- 
ing, as  such,  there  would  still  be  abundant  reason 
why  the  primary  and  secondary  teacher,  quite  as 
much  as  the  college  professor,  should  be  soundly 
and  broadly  educated,  should  follow  a  range  of  study 
and  thought  far  outside  and  beyond  the  subjects 
that  he  teaches.  It  is  the  personality  of  the  man, 
the  breadth  of  his  grasp  of  life,  the  atmosphere  which 
he  creates  and  maintains,  in  his  schoolroom,  that, 
more  than  anything  else,  secure  his  success  in  teach- 
ing and  really  develop  his  pupils.  These  qualities 
can  be  secured,  in  general,  only  by  a  sound  and 
extensive  education. 

No  teacher  has  a  right  to  lament  the  blindness  of 
the  public  toward  the  value  of  his  work  who  has  not 
fitted  himself  in  the  highest  measure  really  to  be  a 
teacher.  No  body  of  teachers  may  honestly  "re- 


74  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

solve"  for  greater  recognition  and  consideration  from 
others  unless  they  are  themselves  doing  yeoman 
work  toward  raising  the  standards  of  preparation 
and  attainment  within  their  own,  so-called,  pro- 
fession. So  long  as  low  ideals  of  school  work, 
routine  instruction,  machine-like  lesson-hearing, 
haphazard  and  aimless  methods,  to  say  nothing  of 
sycophancy  and  petty  politics,  are  tolerated  by  the 
teachers  themselves,  the  schools  and  those  who  con- 
duct them  will  fail  of  due  honor  and  support, 
will  fall  far  short  of  their  possible  efficiency,  will 
not  take  their  rightful  place  as  the  supreme  uplift- 
ing force  of  every  democratic  community.  If  it 
be  deemed  necessary  that  that  profession,  the  law, 
which  governs  our  social  relations,  that  profes- 
sion, engineering,  which  builds  our  structures  and 
machines,  that  profession,  medicine,  which  takes 
care  of  our  perishable  bodies,  should  be  governed 
by  the  strictest  rules,  should  frame  elaborate 
codes  of  ethics,  should  have  only  the  highest  and 
purest  aims,  purging  themselves  of  all  shysters, 
jerry-builders,  and  quacks,  how  infinitely  more  im- 
portant that  this  profession,  teaching,  whose  work 
is  greater,  higher,  nobler  than  any  of  these  others, 
should  be  regarded  and  should  regard  itself  as  a 
sacred  guild  into  which  no  traffickers  or  triflers  be 
allowed  to  come,  regarding  whose  work  no  one  but 


A  TRUE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING         75 

him  who  knows  should  have  aught  to  say,  whose 
sole  aim  should  be  to  make  of  every  individual  child 
of  the  millions  under  its  care  the  very  most  that  can 
be  made. 

Nothing  less  than  this  highest  standard  of  pro- 
fessionalism should  be  thought  of  in  teaching  work; 
nothing  less  than  this  will  keep  the  public  schools 
of  America  at  that  high  point  of  efficiency  which  the 
very  existence  of  democracy  demands.  Citizens, 
parents,  intelligent  school  boards  may  help  the 
teachers,  fight  for  them,  applaud  them;  but  the 
teaching  profession  itself  must  wage  the  battle 
which  is  now  on  and  which  is  to  make  that  in  fact 
and  in  public  estimation  the  greatest  of  professions. 
And  these  teachers  will  fight  this  battle,  not  by 
intriguing  for  higher  salaries  and  easier  positions,  not 
by  depending  upon  favoritism  for  preferment, 
not  by  giving  up  the  true  principles  of  teaching  at 
the  behest  of  laymen,  not  by  shielding  incompe- 
tent fellow-teachers,  not  by  regarding  their  work  as 
a  mere  means  of  livelihood;  but  they  will  make 
their  profession  great  only  by  making  themselves 
and:  their  work  great;  by  regarding  every  child 
placed  under  their  care  as  a  special  problem  sent 
by  Providence;  by  studying  and  thinking  and  ex- 
perimenting as  the  lawyer,  the  physician,  the 
engineer  study  and  ponder  and  experiment;  by 


76  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

holding  unflinchingly  to  what  they  know  to  be 
right  methods;  by  refusing  to  countenance  any 
teaching  that  is  bad,  any  ways  that  are  not  straight- 
forward; by  looking  upon  their  profession  as  one 
too  sacred,  too  vital,  to  claim  anything  less  than  the 
whole  mind  and  heart  and  soul.  When  the  teach- 
ers of  America,  or  a  majority  of  them,  shall  regard 
their  work  in  such  a  light  as  this,  then,  indeed,  teach- 
ing will  be  what  it  ought  to  be,  the  greatest  of  pro- 
fessions; then  will  the  rewards  of  money,  of  fame,  of 
public  honor  come  as  a  matter  of  course.  The 
physician,  the  lawyer,  the  engineer,  have  won  their 
high  place  by  years  of  hard  work,  by  establishing 
standards  below  which  no  honorable  member  of 
their  professions  is  allowed  to  fall.  By  like  hard 
work  and  the  establishing  of  like  standards,  and  in 
that  way  alone,  can  the  teacher,  too,  make  his  pro- 
fession great. 

There  are  certain  stock  arguments  always  brought 
forward  against  the  possibility  of  such  high  pro- 
fessional standards.  The  pitifully  poor  rewards, 
the  uncertainty  of  tenure,  the  often  anomalous 
social  position  of  the  teacher  —  all  these  and  many 
similar  disadvantages  are  advanced  as  reasons 
why  it  is  not  worth  while  to  attempt  to  raise  the 
present  standards  of  attainment.  The  hosts  of  glib 
pretenders,  the  arrogance  of  ignorant  school  com- 


A  TRUE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING         77 

mittees,  a  cheap  and  noisy  commercialism  are, 
it  is  said,  insurmountable  obstacles  to  the  creation 
of  a  generally  high,  fine  conception  of  teaching  such 
as  exists  among  a  few  devoted,  really  educated 
schoolmasters.  A  man  who  adopts  the  work  of 
teaching  must  have,  we  are  told,  something  of  the 
martyr-spirit,  for  this  profession  has  in  it  an  ele- 
ment of  self-sacrifice  which  _the  other  high  vo- 
cations do  not  demand.  Truly  the  work  of  the 
teacher  does  involve  much  sacrifice  of  self;  but  it 
meets  with  immediate  and  tangible  reward,  in  the 
uplifted  lives  of  the  children  for  whom  the  sacrifice 
is  made.  This  is  a  return  which  even  the  profes- 
sion of  the  clergy  rarely  sees.  Moreover,  were  the 
majority  of  those  who  follow  the  profession  of  teach- 
ing broadly  educated  men  and  women,  were  there 
an  esprit  de  corps  among  them  such  as  is  found  in 
every  other  profession,  the  petty  things  of  teaching 
which  now  so  often  overshadow  the  great  things 
would  disappear;  and  the  rewards,  both  material 
and  insubstantial,  would  be  illimitably  increased. 
Rights  and  privileges  would  then  be  eagerly  offered 
where  now  they  are  clamored  for  in  vain. 

The  education  of  the  teacher  —  whether  he  is  to 
deal  with  infants  or  with  collegians  —  should  be  as 
nearly  as  possible  like  the  best  training  given  to 
the  young  physician.  He  should  have,  in  the  first 


78  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

place,  a  general  education  so  broad,  so  well-balanced, 
so  strengthening  to  the  mind,  that  he  is  able  to  deal 
wisely,  as  a  physician  is  called  upon  to  deal,  with 
those  problems  of  character,  those  perversions  of 
mind  and  morals,  those  subtle  diseases  of  the  will 
that  no  medicine  and  no  surgeon's  knife  can  reach. 
Having  made  himself  thus  a  wise  man,  a  proper 
counsellor,  the  young  teacher  must  next,  as  the 
medical  student  does,  become  familiar  with  the 
technical  details  of  his  profession,  learn  what  is 
known  of  the  mental  growth  and  reactive  processes 
of  children,  study  the  laws  of  mental  health,  the 
modes  of  its  preservation,  the  methods  of  stimula- 
ting mind  and  soul,  the  effects,  good  and  bad,  of 
association:  what  one  might  call,  in  short,  the 
pathology  of  childhood  and  adolescence.  More 
than  this,  he  should  make  himself,  as  far  as  can  be 
done  theoretically,master  of  the  details  of  the  school- 
room. Next,  just  as  the  medical  student  takes  his 
course  in  the  hospitals,  the  teacher  must  secure 
practice  —  real,  hard,  actual  practice  —  in  teach- 
ing, with  pupils  of  every  sort  and  age.  And,  finally, 
throughout  his  whole  professional  preparation,  he 
must  make  a  careful  analytical  and  philosophical 
study  of  the  history  of  education. 

What,    beyond    anatomy    and    physiology    and 
laboratory  work,  is  the  three  or  four  years'  course 


A  TRUE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING         79 

of  the  medical  student  except  a  study,  under  guid- 
ance, of  the  history  of  medicine,  of  the  record  of 
human  experience  concerning  the  treatment  of 
disease,  concerning  the  preservation  of  health? 
When  a  young  worker  in  the  hospitals  meets  new 
symptoms,  does  he  guess  at  the  disease  which  they 
denote,  does  he  experiment  first  with  one  drug  and 
then  with  another  in  the  hope  that  he  may  hit 
upon  something  suited  to  the  emergency?  Absurd 
supposition!  Yet  that  is  what  teachers  are  doing 
every  day.  A  new  child  comes  to  them  whose  moral 
habits  and  intellectual  reaction  indicate  disease  — 
or  lack  of  normal  educability.  Immediately  the 
average  teacher  runs  through  his  small  record  of 
experience  to  ascertain  if  he  has  had  a  pupil  of  such 
kind  before.  Finding  in  his  memory  a  case  having 
somewhat  similar  features,  he  at  once  decides  that 
the  disease  is  due  to  such  and  such  abnormalities, 
and  must  be  treated  thus  and  so.  If,  after  a  few 
weeks'  trial,  it  is  evident  that  the  treatment  is  not 
successful,  he  tries  another  moral  and  intellectual 
medicine  or,  more  probably,  gives  the  case  up  and 
subjects  the  pupil  to  the  general  routine  discipline 
and  diet  which,  in  a  rule-of-thumb  fashion,  he  has 
prepared  for  the  average,  normal,  ought-to-be  boy 
or  girl.  As  a  result  his  patient  dies,  not,  unfor- 
tunately, in  the  flesh,  but,  what  is  worse,  in  the 


So  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

spirit;  and  one  more  victim  is  added  to  those  slain, 
with  the  best  intentions,  by  pedagogical  malprac- 
tice. 

When  the  physician,  on  the  contrary,  meets  ob- 
scure symptoms  he  goes  at  once  to  his  record  of 
other  men's  experience,  to  his  authoritative  books, 
his  latest  medical  journals,  his  older  and  wiser 
colleagues.  With  their  help  he  makes  diagnosis  of 
the  disease  and  learns  the  manner  of  treatment 
approved  by  experience  and  analogy.  Or,  if  the 
patient  is  in  good  health  and  desires  to  perpetuate 
that  happy  state,  the  physician,  having  made  a 
careful  study  of  the  diet  and  exercise  suited  to  that 
man's  condition,  gives  him  proper  advice.  In  the 
manner  of  the  doctor  the  good  teacher  should  regard 
every  pupil  as  a  patient;  either  as  a  well  one,  to  be 
kept  in  health  and  to  be  helped  to  grow  to  his  fullest 
stature  and  greatest  strength,  or  as  a  sick  one,  to 
be  physicked  and  nursed  back,  if  possible,  to  mental 
and  moral  well-being.  Every  well-trained  teacher 
ought,  as  a  matter  of  course,  thus  to  individualize 
and  treat  his  pupils;  his  professional  instinct  should 
impel  him  to  it;  he  should  find  his  delight,  as  the 
physician  does,  in  the  mere  act  of  healing,  in  the 
power  and  influence  that  his  skill  has  given  him. 
Such  a  schoolmaster,  provided  he  have  the  teaching 
enthusiasm,  just  as  the  successful  medical  man 


A  TRUE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING         81 

must  liave  the  healing  fervor,  will  never  question 
the  wisdom  of  his  choice  of  a  profession,  for  he  will 
know  that  he  is  doing  the  best  and  most  enduring 
work  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  any  man  to  do. 

It  is  impossible,  of  course,  for  many  teachers  to 
secure  such  a  rounded  education  as  this,  based 
upon  the  training  of  the  physician;  but  every  teacher 
can  strive  toward  it,  and  every  year  his  striving, 
happily,  is  made  less  laborious. 

A  college  education,  essential  as  it  is  to  the  highest 
usefulness,  does  not,  it  cannot  be  too  often  reiter- 
ated, make  a  teacher.  The  bachelor's  degree  is 
but  the  "articles  of  apprenticeship";  the  real  test 
and  trial  of  work  only  then  begins.  Doubtless  a 
college  graduate  can  lay  out  and  superintend  a 
course  of  study,  and  can  inspire  his  pupils  with 
enthusiasm  in  the  following  of  such  a  course,  pro- 
vided it  be  work  in  science,  in  mathematics,  or  in 
literature,  in  which  he  purposes,  more  and  more 
deeply,  himself  to  study.  But  one  is  not  a  real 
teacher,  as  a  doctor  is  a  real  physician,  until  he  can 
go  into  a  primary  or  grammar  school,  plan  a  course 
of  work  within  the  narrow  and  somewhat  arbitrary 
lines  which  custom  has  laid  down,  fit  that  work  to 
the  forty  different  needs  of  forty  pupils,  each  pupil 
with  a  distinct  and  more  or  less  diseased  individuality, 
every  one  suspicious,  every  one  ready  to  take  ad- 


82  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

vantage  of  faults  and  errors,  every  one  certain  to 
keep  himself,  until  forced  open,  tight  shut  within  a 
shell  of  reserve,  of  shyness,  of  boyish  defiance,  that 
completely  hides  his  individuality.  No  one  is 
really  a  teacher  until  he  is  able,  in  the  year  or  less 
during  which  he  has  control  of  these  forty  children, 
to  arouse  in  them  the  same  enthusiasm  for  their 
reading,  arithmetic,  and  geography  that,  probably, 
he  is  perfectly  well  able  to  inspire  in  a  special  class 
of  picked  and  nearly  mature  students  of  biology  or 
chemistry  or  higher  mathematics. 

Any  young  teacher,  therefore,  who  goes  im- 
mediately into  collegiate  work,  or  even  into  high- 
school  teaching,  without  serving  an  apprenticeship 
in  the  elementary  schools,  loses  a  part  of  his  training 
without  which  his  teaching  can  never  be  as  effective 
as  it  ought.  For  in  the  college  or  high  school  he 
will  deal  only  with  one  phase  of  mental  and  moral 
growth,  the  adolescent;  he  will  see  only  picked 
pupils;  he  will  deal  only  with  minds  mature  enough 
to  be  at  least  partially  self-active  and  receptive. 
Moreover,  he  will  be  always  ignorant  of  the  past 
mental  and  moral  history,  not  only  of  his  own 
pupils,  but  of  all  such  boys  and  girls.  He  will 
know  nothing  of  that  shaping  process  by  which, 
following  the  analogy  of  educational  history,  the 
scattered  and  unformed  and  ill-disciplined  mind  of 


A  TRUE  PROFESSION  OF  TEACHING         83 

the  first  primary  child  is  educated  into  the  rudi- 
ments of  learning,  by  which  are  unlocked  for  it, 
first,  the  secrets  of  the  printed  page;  next,  the  truths 
and  phenomena  of  science  and  of  history.  He  will 
see  nothing  of  the  development  of  the  child's  social 
instinct,  of  the  process  of  instilling  into  him  the  minor 
morals  which  shall  regulate  his  social  intercourse. 
And  he  will  be  ignorant,  wofully  ignorant,  of  that 
storm  and  stress  period  of  early  adolescence,  that 
period  in  which  character  is  put  to  the  severest  test, 
that  period  in  which  the  teacher  has  such  power  for 
good  that  it  fills  one  with  indignation  to  see  how  lit- 
tle and  how  seldom  that  power  is  exerted.  The 
teacher  in  the  high  school  and  the  college  takes  the 
boy  after  all  the  battles  which  decide  his  character 
have  been  fought;  and  busies  himself,  too  late,  in 
trying  to  correct  faults  and  heal  wounds  that  have 
grown  too  great  for  correction  and  too  wide  fpr 
healing.  And  even  his  efforts  at  correction  will  be, 
often,  foolish  and  mistaken,  because  he  will  have 
failed  to  acquire  that  fundamental  knowledge  which 
every  teacher  ought  to  possess,  a  knowledge  of  the 
growth  of  childhood  from  its  very  first  entrance 
into  the  region  of  school  life. 

If  every  college  man  and  woman,  before  entering 
upon  the  work  of  teaching,  would  submit  to  this 
apprenticeship,  and  if,  in  following  it,  would  seri- 


84  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

ously  examine  into  and  build  up  the  character  of 
every  pupil  coming  under  his  or  her  control;  if,  at 
the  same  time,  the  young  teachers  would  profoundly 
study  the  history  of  education,  would  attend  con- 
ferences, would  seek  authoritative  counsel,  just  as 
the  doctor  studies  his  authorities  and  keeps  abreast 
with  current  discovery  and  thought,  they  would 
not  only  strengthen  themselves  incalculably  as 
teachers  of  the  higher  subjects,  they  would  leave 
such  an  impression  upon  primary  teaching  as  to 
hasten  immensely  the  coming  of  that  golden  era 
in  teaching  when  there  shall  be  no  child  without 
the  opportunity  for  a  full  development  of  his  in- 
dividuality, no  child  who  may  not  obtain  a  real  edu- 
cation given  by  true  teachers. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    DEMAND    FOR   VOCATIONAL  TRAINING 

MR.  BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON  points  an 
admirable  moral  in  the  story  of  a  boy  set 
to  plow  a  field  and  told  to  run  his  first 
furrow  toward  a  white  horse  grazing  on  the  other 
side.  The  yokel,  however,  aiming  his  plow  all  day 
long  at  the  same  unstable  mark,  the  field  at  night 
was  a  maze  of  furrows  wandering  toward  every 
compass-point.  Foolish  as  this  young  plowman 
was,  he  at  least  grasped  the  fundamental  notion 
that  a  furrow  must  aim  somewhere;  while  to  most 
children  in  school  and  youths  in  college  comes  never 
a  glimpse  of  the  fact  that  education  has  any  purpose 
or  object  other  than  that  of  imparting  some  useful 
and  much  useless  information. 

Only  at  the  two  extremes  of  school  life  —  in  the 
kindergarten  and  in  the  professional  school  —  is 
teaching  deliberately  given  a  definite  aim;  and  we 
stand  amazed  at  the  zeal  and  enthusiasm  which 
result.  We  see,  on  the  one  hand,  infants  exuber- 
antly willing  to  work  in  making  things  for  the  father 

85 


86  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

and  mother  or  for  use  in  the  group  play;  we  see, 
on  the  other  hand,  idle  and  indifferent  youth  con- 
verted into  omniverous  learners  and  indefatigable 
workers  when,  in  the  professional  school,  they  come 
in  sight  of  a  definite,  bread-and-butter  goal.  Yet 
we  fail  to  draw  the  obvious  conclusion  that  motive 
is  a  tremendously  important,  if  not,  indeed,  an 
essential,  factor  in  all  education.  From  the  kinder- 
garten to  the  professioanl  school,  through  the  ele- 
mentary and  secondary  grades  and  the  college  of 
arts,  is  a  long  and  weary  road;  but  it  is  made  need- 
lessly difficult  for  the  teacher,  while  the  taught  fall 
out  in  disastrous  number,  because  there  is  ceaseless 
emphasis  upon  the  details  of  the  marching  rather 
than  upon  the  efficiency  and  power  toward  which 
the  marching  leads. 

If  one  protests  against  this  aimlessness  of  schools 
and  colleges  he  will  be  informed  that  education  is  to 
strengthen  and  broaden  generally,  not  to  train 
specifically,  and  that  to  give  it  an  aim  would  make 
it  narrow,  sordid,  and  material.  To  prove  this 
position  will  be  cited  our  parent  system  of  edu- 
cation, that  of  the  English  public  school  and  uni- 
versity, which  has  produced  a  thoughtful  and 
dominant  race.  But  the  main  reason  why  that 
education  has  been  successful  is  because  it  had  a 
very  definite  aim :  that  of  preserving  a  ruling  class 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  87 

of  gentlemen.  It  matters  little  what  such  a  body 
studies  provided  its  system  of  education  maintains 
an  exclusive  atmosphere  and  upholds  accepted  tra- 
ditions of  gentlemanly  honor.  But  to  take,  as  we 
have,  such  an  essentially  aristocratic  system  and  the 
principles  upon  which  it  rests  as  models  for  the 
wholesale  training  of  a  democratic  population  is, 
to  say  the  least,  a  curious  anomaly. 

More  singular  still,  it  is  only  in  these  modern 
days,  when  we  most  need  definiteness  in  American 
education,  that  it  has  exhibited  such  thorough- 
going aimlessness.  The  early  New  England  train- 
ing had  a  very  definite  goal :  that  of  rearing  all  chil- 
dren in  godliness  and  of  selecting,  out  of  this  widely 
pious  population,  the  most  promising  for  a  collegiate 
training.  The  early  college,  in  turn,  had  the  definite 
purpose  of  training  either  ministers  to  men's  souls 
or  magistrates  over  their  bodies.  With  the  multi- 
plication of  sects,  however,  the  religious  aim  has 
been  gradually  eliminated,  and  with  the  spread  of 
real  democracy  every  man  has  become  a  potential 
magistrate.  Nevertheless,  we  still  cling  to  the 
type  of  education  which  had  those  vanished  aims, 
and,  to  justify  ourselves,  maintain  that  education 
should  seek  breadth  and  culture  and  should  therefore 
be  kept  remote  from  the  alleged  narrow  and  sordid 
needs  of  daily  life. 


88  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

What  are  some  of  the  wastes  and  losses  which 
follow  from  conservative  clinging  to  this  wavering 
shadow  years  after  the  pedagogical  substance  of  it 
has  faded  away?  Through  this  false  notion  of 
keeping  daily  education  remote  from  daily  living 
we  are  perpetuating  the  wrong  idea  that  education 
is  an  aristocratic  privilege,  not  a  democratic  right; 
we  are  accentuating  the  snobbish  contention  that 
work  is  vulgar  instead  of  being  (as  it  is)  the  most 
blessed  gift  of  God;  we  are  making  the  schooling  of 
children  a  secondary,  and  often  hated,  incident  in 
their  formative  years;  we  are  losing  by  the  wayside 
a  large  proportion  of  pupils  who  would  greatly  profit 
by  the  right  kind  of  education;  we  are  graduating 
from  our  educational  institutions  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  quite  unfitted  to  grapple  with  the  con- 
ditions of  industrial,  civic,  and  family  life;  and  we 
are  spending  enormous  sums  in  directions  where 
they  are  bringing  in  no  commensurate  return  in 
good  citizenship  and  effective  workmanship. 

There  are,  however,  even  more  direct  industrial 
and  moral  (for  they  are  inextricably  mingled)  losses 
resulting  from  this  aimlessness  in  education,  from 
this  false  belief  that  if  a  child  and  youth  be  given 
a  wide  range  of  general  information  he  will  be  able 
to  focus  it,  when  necessary,  upon  the  specific  needs 
of  his  definite  life  work.  An  early  product  is  the 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  89 

restless  parent  who,  seeing  no  reason  except  a 
galling  law  for  keeping  his  child  in  school,  fills  that 
boy  with  rebellion  against  what  old  and  young  re- 
gard as  a  foolish  sacrifice  of  valuable  working-time. 
This  plants  in  pupils  the  idea  —  a  seed  which  finds 
ready  ground  —  that  school  is  something  to  be  taken 
as  a  medicine  and  to  be  escaped  as  often  and  as 
early  as  may  be.  A  second  result  is  that  boys  and 
girls,  as  soon  as  they  are  released  from  school,  rush 
into  the  first  thing  which  offers,  often  blighting,  by 
so  doing,  their  whole  career.  It  is  deplorable  how 
many  lives  are  spoiled,  industrially  and  morally, 
because  the  youth,  being  able  to  do  little  more  than 
read  and  write,  and  having  no  outlook  upon  real 
life,  applies  for  work  at  the  first  sign  of  "Boy 
wanted,"  takes  a  position  as  office  or  errand  boy, 
learns  very  little  between  his  fourteenth  and  seven- 
teenth years  except  idleness,  shirking  and  vice,  and 
arrives  at  the  time  when  he  might  begin  to  do  a 
man's  work,  not  only  unfitted  to  take  up  such  labor, 
but  actually  —  to  use  a  vulgar  though  expressive 
phrase  —  industrially  rotten  before  he  has  become 
industrially  ripe.  A  third  product  of  aimlessness  is 
the  youth  or  girl  who  would  much  better  be  at  work, 
but  who  is  kept  uselessly  at  school  because  of  the 
false  notion  that  even  secondary  schooling  gives  a 
certain  social  prestige,  that,  in  other  words,  the 


QO  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

longer  a  child  is  kept  from  being  a  useful  member 
of  society  the  higher  is  his  place  in  the  social  scale. 
Another  result  of  our  indefinite  education  is  that  the 
industrial  world  is  clamoring  for  youth  who,  while 
having  no  special  skill,  possess  the  ability  to  become 
skilled,  without  finding,  in  a  vast  number  of  the  boys 
turned  out  from  our  schools,  this  needed  power. 
There  follow  from  this,  of  course,  the  overcrowding 
of  the  unskilled  occupations,  or  those  requiring  only 
clerical  ability,  an  upsetting  of  the  industrial  balance, 
and  a  tremendous  waste  and  loss  of  human  energy. 
A  final  result  which  naturally  follows  from  the  others 
is  a  widespread  distrust  of  the  value  of  education 
and,  consequently,  a  lukewarm  support  of  it,  finan- 
cially and  morally,  by  the  community. 

Two  things  to  emphasize  with  every  child  from 
his  first  dawning  of  understanding  are  that  he  should 
be  a  useful  worker  and  a  good  citizen.  The  two  things, 
therefore,  which  should  be  emphasized  in  connection 
with  the  public  schools  are  that  they  must  produce 
efficient  workers  and  enlightened  citizens.  Those 
aims,  however,  are  to  the  public  rather  vague  and 
to  the  child  are,  of  course,  meaningless,  unless  the 
school  makes  them  clear  and  definite  through  the 
kind  of  instruction  which  it  undertakes  to  give. 
Premising  that  the  school  should  do  what  it  can  to 
keep  the  child  healthy  and  physically  whole,  it 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  91 

should  give  him,  first,  as  essential  tools  of  social 
living,  reading,  writing,  and  number-work,  using 
them  —  since  even  a  child  will  appreciate  their 
importance  —  as  a  means  of  sound  and  solid  edu- 
cational drill.  The  next  things  to  teach  a  child  are 
how  to  use  his  faculties  effectively:  his  eye  so  that  he 
may  see  with  his  brain,  his  ears  so  that  he  may  hear 
with  his  mind,  his  hands  so  that  they  may  be  supple, 
nimble,  and  variedly  efficient.  Such  instruction,  of 
course,  must  be  unconsciously  imparted  through  sub- 
jects and  exercises  which  call  into  play  those  faculties 
and  demand  this  kind  of  efficiency — observational 
studies,  sense  training,  manual  development,  etc. 

Education  like  this,  however,  can  be  given  ef- 
fectively only  through  subjects  which  really  interest 
the  child;  and  such  interest  can  be  aroused,  as 
long  centuries  of  experience  have  shown,  only 
through  work  of  which  the  child  sees  the  immediate 
aim  or  the  ultimate  result.  Not  that  the  pupil 
should  be  entertained  or  amused:  on  the  contrary, 
he  will  and  should  be  made  to  do  much  harder  work 
under  the  incentive  of  interest  than  he  would  dream 
of  doing  under  the  lash  of  compulsion.  But  his 
work  should  be  made  vital  to  the  pupil  by  being 
of  such  a  nature  that  he  can  see  daily,  definite  re- 
sults or,  at  least,  some  clear  goal  toward  which  he  is 
every  week  plainly  progressing. 


This  requires  that  every  child  should  be  trained 
as  an  individual,  the  fundamental  defect  in  public 
education  being  that  it  tries  to  deal  with  masses  of 
children  instead  of  with  the  individual  child.  From 
this  follow  those  mechanical  methods  of  schooling 
which  stunt  or  pervert  every  child  who  does  not 
happen  —  as  very  few  children  do —  to  fit  into  the 
pedagogical  machine.  To  secure  individual  instruc- 
tion for  each  child  it  is  essential  to  reduce  the  num- 
ber of  pupils  to  each  teacher.  We  shall  never  get  a 
public  education  which  amounts  to  much  as  a  social 
force  until  we  are  willing  to  appropriate  sufficient 
money  to  give  at  least  one  teacher  to  twenty -five 
pupils  and  to  secure  teachers,  in  all  cases,  competent 
to  train  the  child  as  an  individual  instead  of  as 
part  of  a  huge  machine.  So  long  as  we  try  to  get  a 
public  education  that  can  be  given  by  one  teacher 
to  forty,  fifty,  or  even  sixty  children  at  once,  the 
moral  and  economic  waste  of  our  present  regime 
cannot  be  repaired. 

Supposing  that  the  public  should  become  suffi- 
ciently aroused  to  its  true  interests  to  appropriate 
such  adequate  sums  and  to  spend  them  upon 
thoroughly  trained  teachers,  what  are  some  of  the 
ways  of  giving  education,  under  those  conditions, 
a  more  definite  aim?  The  first  business  of  the 
teacher,  thus  given  time  to  do  so,  would  be  to  study 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  93 

every  child  in  her  class,  not  as  an  isolated  being  or  as 
a  unit  in  a  school  group,  but  as  a  member  of  a  family 
and  of  a  neighborhood;  for  it  is  from  his  family  and 
his  neighborhood  that  he  receives  the  greater  part 
of  his  general  education,  and  it  is  as  a  member  of  a 
family  and  as  a  citizen  of  some  community  that  his 
education  is  to  be  put  to  use.  Having  acquainted 
herself  with  his  circumstances,  it  will  be  her  next 
duty  to  adapt  her  teaching,  within  reasonable  limits, 
to  each  child's  needs,  strengthening  those  sides  of  his 
nature  which,  because  of  environment,  are  weak, 
filling  out  those  deficiencies  which  his  family  and 
neighborhood  cannot  supply,  giving  him  those  fun- 
damental forms  of  training  which  it  is  obvious 
he  will  most  need  in  after  life,  and  leading  him, 
as  far  as  may  seem  possible  and  best,  toward  that 
economic  path  in  which  he  seems  most  likely  to 
succeed. 

The  next  duty  of  such  a  teacher,  thus  given 
opportunity  really  to  educate,  would  be  to  enlist 
all  those  family  and  neighborhood  forces  on  her 
side.  As  a  rule,  those  forces  now  are  either  in- 
different or  antagonistic  to  the  school,  giving  the 
teacher  the  double  burden  of  counteracting  both 
a  hostile  atmosphere  outside  the  school  and  a  stupid 
and  indifferent  one  within.  With  an  understand- 
ing of  the  pupil  and  with  a  plain  determination  to 


94  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

help  that  child  to  make  the  most  of  himself  in  every 
way,  it  will  be  easy  enough  to  make  this  great  inert 
or  hostile  mass  which  flows  around  and  too  often 
swamps  the  school  into  a  great  flood  of  enthusiasm 
and  activity  to  lift  the  teacher  and  her  pupils  up  to 
the  highest  level  of  possible  efficiency. 

It  is  not  until  the  high-school  age,  however,  that 
definite  vocational  training  can  properly  begin; 
and  it  is  in  the  high-school  period  that  the  greatest 
waste  of  fine  human  material  now  takes  place.  A 
vast  majority  of  the  youth  of  that  age  are  flung  out 
into  industrial  life  without  proper  preparation  for, 
or  guidance  in,  that  life;  while  to  the  comparatively 
few  who  enter  the  secondary  school  its  courses  are 
of  little  or  no  essential  benefit. 

The  high  schools,  as  a  rule,  have  thus  far  wronged 
the  public,  not  simply  in  giving  their  best  service 
to  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  community;  they 
have  offended  even  more  grievously  in  belittling 
the  real  uses  and  possibilities  of  secondary  edu- 
cation. Ignoring  the  fact  that  to  nine  out  of  ten 
pupils  the  high  school  is  the  last  stage  of  formal 
training,  its  courses  have  been  planned,  not  to 
round  out  that  education,  but  to  leave  it  unfinished, 
unintelligible,  and  in  large  measure  barren  to  those 
graduates  who  do  not  go  to  college.  What  wonder, 
then,  that  the  attendance  upon  high  schools  is, 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  95 

relatively,  so  insignificant,  and  that  the  average 
parent  hesitates  to  send  his  children  to  institutions 
which,  as  a  rule,  do  little  toward  making  them  into 
good  citizens  and  workers,  and  which  do  much 
toward  leaving  them  intellectually  suspended  be- 
tween the  unambitious  earth  of  the  grammar  school 
and  the  unattainable  heaven  of  the  university. 

The  first  step  for  public  secondary  education  to 
take,  then,  if  it  would  provide  the  completest  prepa- 
ration for  after-life,  is  to  assert  and  to  secure  ab- 
solute independence  of  the  colleges  —  independence, 
that  is,  in  matters  of  curriculum.  This  being  done, 
there  will  be  possible  in  the  high  school  that  breadth 
of  thought  and  variety  of  teaching  essential  to 
a  complete  and  impartial  preparation  for  all  vo- 
cations. Freedom  and  breadth  once  secured  to 
secondary  education,  the  colleges  will  quickly  adapt 
themselves  to  the  new  order,  and  will  establish 
better  standards  for  admission:  not  arbitrary  ones, 
based  upon  their  own  supposed  needs,  but  rational 
ones  inciting  to  the  best  and  widest  attainments  on 
the  part  of  the  public  school,  and  so  flexible  that, 
no  matter  what  may  have  been  his  original  goal, 
the  pupil  who  has  successfully  completed  any  good 
secondary  course  may,  at  the  last  moment,  deflect 
himself,  without  delay  or  additional  labor,  into  the 
college  doors. 


96  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

Agreeing  that  the  public  high  school  should 
preserve  equality  toward  all  possible  vocations;  that 
it  should  give  no  advantage  or  encouragement  to 
the  future  physician  over  the  future  shopkeeper,  to 
the  shopkeeper  over  the  mechanic,  or  to  the  me- 
chanic over  the  professional  man,  how  shall  this 
equipoise  be  maintained?  Only  by  rigorously  ex- 
cluding from  the  secondary  course  all  that  is  special 
to  any  profession  or  peculiar  to  any  trade,  and  by 
adding  every  suitable  topic  and  means  of  teach- 
ing which  has  general  educational  value.  Such  a 
process  would  not  reduce  the  high  school  to  a  single 
uniform  course  of  study;  on  the  contrary,  it  would 
at  once  necessitate  wide  opportunity  for  selection 
on  the  part  of  the  pupil;  creating,  thereby,  as  an 
inseparable  accompaniment  of  secondary  work,  an 
extensive  system  of  elective  study. 

Judiciously  supervised,  the  permission  of  choice 
is,  in  itself,  of  immense  value  at  the  high-school  age. 
Moreover,  such  permission  makes  possible,  with- 
out disobedience  to  the  requirement  that  special 
vocations  shall  not  be  favored,  direct  vocational 
preparation.  For  if  the  secondary  course  extend 
over  at  least  four  years,  if  it  be  in  the  hands  of  fit 
teachers,  the  aptitudes  of  a  large  proportion  of  the 
pupils  can  be  readily  discerned.  The  future  of 
others  will  be  determined  by  their  family  or  social 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  97 

relations.  With  both  these  classes  it  is  practicable 
early  to  differentiate  their  work  and  to  lay  especial 
stress,  without  sacrifice  of  breadth,  upon  those  high- 
school  topics  which  bear  most  directly  upon  their 
clearly  indicated  ultimate  vocations. 

Furthermore,  elective  studies  in  the  high  school 
foster  the  growth  and  development  of  individuality 
in  its  pupils.  Our  public-school  methods  have  been 
brought,  in  many  instances,  to  such  perfection 
that  the  pupils  are  in  danger  of  being  destroyed  in 
the  admired  machinery.  Some  —  I  fear  many  — 
schoolrooms  are  such  excellent  pieces  of  clockwork 
that  the  children  have  been  transformed  into  clock 
wheels,  into  mere  bits  of  filed  metal,  mentally 
useless  except  in  their  school  places  and  quite  hope- 
less dunces  if  they  refuse  to  permit  themselves  to 
be  filed  at  all!  Such  a  result  is  a  mockery  of  edu- 
cation, as  little  related  to  human  needs  and  pur- 
poses as  is  a  wax  automaton  to  a  flesh-and-blood 
man.  Almost  better  no  teaching  than  such  saw- 
dust stuff  as  this!  The  soul  of  a  man  is  bound  up 
in  his  individuality;  and  were  we  dealing  with 
primary  education  it  would  be  easy  to  grow  hot  over 
a  system  that  puts  fifty  or  even  sixty  of  these  in- 
dividual souls  into  the  keeping  of  a  single  teacher 
who,  in  order  to  get  through  her  day's  work  at  all, 
must  grind  and  file  and  squeeze  these  little  in- 


98  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

dividualities  into  a  dulling  and  deadening  uni- 
formity. 

Fortunately,  or  unfortunately,  those  who  get  as 
far  as  the  high  school  are  so  few  in  number  that,  as 
a  rule,  the  proportion  of  pupils  to  teachers  is  much 
smaller  than  in  the  lower  schools,  and  individuality 
can  receive  some  thought  and  consideration.  But 
there,  again,  system,  that  delight  of  the  pedagogue, 
would,  with  increasing  numbers,  assume  control 
were  it  not  that,  coincident  with  an  increase  in 
attendance,  is  growing  up  an  understanding  of  and 
a  belief  in  choice  of  studies.  The  elective  prin- 
ciple in  secondary  education,  rightly  developed  and 
wisely  extended,  will  do  much  to  hasten  the  coming 
of  that  ideal  time  when  the  man  and  his  vocation 
will  be  in  closer  harmony,  for  it  will  promote  those 
things  which  put  a  man  in  sympathy  with  his  voca- 
tion, impel  him  to  seek  a  congenial  work  in  life,  and 
give  him  strength  to  make  that  work  an  expression, 
as  all  good  work  should  be,  of  himself.  It  will  pro- 
mote, in  short,  his  individuality. 

There  are  three  great  classes  of  workers  to  whom 
a  high-school  course  not  only  is  possible  but  should 
be  made  equally  beneficial:  the  professional  class, 
the  commercial  class,  the  industrial  class.  It  might 
be  profitable  to  consider  how  perfectly  the  usual 
secondary  course  meets  the  needs  of  professional 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  99 

preparation;  but  since,  as  has  been  shown,  the 
strength  of  the  ordinary  high-school  curriculum  — 
whether  well  or  ill  planned  —  is  now  expended  upon 
preparation  for  the  professions,  that  minority  of 
persons  may  be  passed  by,  in  order  to  consider  the 
vocational  training  provided  by  the  secondary 
school  for  that  immense  majority  of  skilled  workers, 
the  followers  of  commerce  and  the  industrial  arts. 
The  question  is  best  approached  from  the  other 
direction,  by  inquiring  what  are  the  qualities  that 
the  merchant,  the  manufacturer,  the  railroad 
official,  the  foreman  of  a  shop,  seek  in  boys  who 
come  into  their  employ  to  earn  eventual  promotion 
to  positions  of  responsibility.  They  do  not  demand 
technical  knowledge;  that  is  to  be  gained  only  by 
experience  behind  the  counter,  at  the  desk,  upon 
the  road,  with  the  machine  or  tool.  Such  technical 
knowledge  cannot  be  given  —  ought  not  to  be  given 
if  it  could  —  in  the  school;  scarcely  can  it  be  im- 
parted in  any  establishment  other  than  that  to 
which  the  boy  is  to  be  attached,  so  peculiar  to  each 
office  or  shop  is  the  skill  required  to  sell  its  goods, 
to  keep  its  books,  to  handle  its  machinery.  In  that 
direction,  therefore,  the  'prentice  mind  is  preferably 
smoothed  wax  whereon  the  better  to  impress  the 
methods,  the  ideas,  the  atmosphere  individual  to 
each  establishment. 


ioo  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

Without  demanding  specialized  knowledge,  there- 
fore, there  are  many  things  which  the  employer  of  a 
high-school  graduate  does  want  very  much;  and  be- 
cause he  cannot  often  secure  them  he  complains 
loudly  of  education.  Not  seldom  he  maintains  that 
the  less  schooling  an  apprentice  has  the  better. 
Truly,  as  regards  schooling  of  a  certain  kind  he  is 
not  far  wrong.  There  is  a  sort  of  teaching  which 
destroys  the  mother-wit  and  dulls  the  ambition  of 
the  brightest  and  most  eager  boy;  though,  happily, 
schools  of  that  ill  character  are  increasingly  more  rare. 

What  are  these  qualities  which  every  employer  of 
unskilled  boy-power  —  to  be  transformed  along  cer- 
tain lines  into  skilled  man-power — wants?  First: 
good  morals.  The  lad  must  be  trustworthy,  honest, 
truth-telling,  not  easily  tempted,  sturdy  to  with- 
stand the  moral  ordeal  which  life  holds  for  every  one. 

Secondly:  good  health.  The  teaching  and  train- 
ing which,  whether  he  will  or  not,  the  employer 
must  give  to  his  employees  is,  from  his  standpoint, 
an  investment  of  capital;  and  he  is  bound  to  secure 
such  sound  flesh-and-blood  into  which  to  put  this 
capital  that  there  will  be  little  risk  of  physical 
bankruptcy,  just  as  he  and  his  employee  begin  to 
reap,  from  the  technical  knowledge  and  proved 
faithfulness  of  the  latter,  large  dividends  upon  the 
original  investment. 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  101 

Thirdly:  gumption.  No  better  than  this  homely 
word  can  be  found  to  express  that  combination  of 
alertness,  keen  observation,  ready  wit,  power  to 
seize  opportunities  and  to  surmount  difficulties, 
which,  next  to  good  health  and  morals,  is  most 
essential  to  a  man's  success. 

Fourthly:  power  of  concentration.  That  is,  abil- 
ity to  work  hard  and  long  and  intensely,  shutting 
out  all  other  thoughts  and  interests  and  reaching 
by  the  quickest  path  the  largest  measure  of  result. 

Fifthly:  manual  power.  Not  mere  skill  in  hand- 
work, but  excellence  in  "handiness."  This  im- 
plies an  understanding  between  the  brain  and  hand 
so  perfect  that,  no  matter  how  new  or  seemingly 
difficult  the  manual  task,  it  is  no  sooner  understood 
by  the  mind  than  the  willing  muscles  instantly 
respond. 

Finally,  the  employer,  especially  in  commercial 
pursuits,  asks,  almost  despairingly,  that  the  ap- 
prentice shall  have  familiarity  with  and  power  over 
the  tools  of  social  communication:  over  reading, 
writing,  spelling,  speech,  composition,  expression, 
and  the  use  of  numbers.  How  simple  this  require- 
ment! Yet  how  rare  the  secondary,  or  even  the  col- 
lege, graduate  who  can  so  wield  the  tool  of  writing 
that  what  he  writes  is  both  mechanically  legible 
and  handsome  and  intellectually  clear  and  forcible; 


loa  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

who  has  such  command  over  the  tool  of  speech 
that  he  does  not  offend  by  errors,  does  not  mislead 
others,  does  not  misrepresent  himself;  who  so  ap- 
perceives  the  printed  word  that  it  is  a  real  inter- 
preter, not  a  barrier,  between  his  understanding  and 
the  writer's  thought;  who  can  use  the  tool  of  num- 
bers rapidly,  easily,  and  without  question  of  the 
result. 

Given  a  boy  with  good  morals  and  sound  health, 
who  can  read  understandingly,  speak  clearly,  write 
legibly,  grammatically  and  forcefully,  and  cipher 
correctly;  let  him  have,  besides,  tact  (which  comes 
by  nature),  gumption,  handiness,  and  the  power  of 
working  both  hard  and  effectively  —  the  business 
and  industrial  world  is  his  to  choose  from,  for  his 
worth  will  have  but  few  competitors. 

Thorough  command  of  these  three  R's  is  secured 
to  the  pupil  only  by  eternal  vigilance.  No  oc- 
casional practise  of  them  will  at  all  suffice.  Alike 
in  the  secondary  and  in  the  elementary  school, 
during  every  moment  of  the  sessions,  writing,  spell- 
ing, speaking,  composition,  expression,  ciphering 
must  be  under  sleepless  inspection.  Every  exercise, 
every  recitation,  every  laboratory  report  should  be 
a  double  test:  of  the  pupil's  knowledge  of  the  topic 
itself,  of  his  skill  with  the  tools  by  which  he  makes 
that  knowledge  evident.  Hardly  a  skilled  career 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  103 

can  be  imagined  in  which  such  early  vigilance  will 
not  be  repaid  a  thousandfold. 

Rightly  or  wrongly,  the  world  pays  immense  re- 
gard to  the  forms  of  things.  Call  this  attitude,  if 
you  please,  superficial,  rail  at  form  as  a  thing  un- 
essential to  true  worth  and  usefulness,  the  fact  re- 
mains that,  as  a  rule,  it  is  the  way  in  which  a  man 
brings  himself  before  the  world  quite  as  much  as 
what  he  brings  that  assures  his  success.  Man- 
ners do  make  the  man,  because  they  are  the  only 
sign  visible  to  the  world  of  the  inward  worth.  Let 
the  boy  or  girl  possess  every  virtue  and  much 
knowledge,  the  way  of  advancement  will  be  difficult 
or  impossible  unless  he  or  she  can  transmute  those 
virtues  and  that  knowledge  into  the  only  current 
coin  of  social  intercourse,  the  coin  of  ready  and 
excellent  speech  and  writing,  the  coin  of  absolute 
command  of  those  human  tools  with  which  alone 
the  elaborate  fabric  of  civilization  has  been  con- 
structed and  can  be  carried  higher. 

Concentration,  the  power  of  hard  and  effective 
work,  is  a  habit  that  can  be  formed  only  in  youth. 
Most  high  schools  are  much  too  lenient  in  this 
matter  of  concentration.  Their  sessions  are  too 
short,  thoroughness  in  everything  that  the  pupil 
does  is  not  sufficiently  insisted  upon,  the  proportion 
of  women  teachers  (for  boys)  is  too  large,  manly 


io4  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

standards  are  not  strongly  enough  maintained,  and 
the  study-time  is  not  so  sharply  supervised  as  are 
the  recitation  periods.  If  a  boy  at  fourteen  seeks 
employment,  he  must,  fortunately  for  him,  work 
hard  for  many  hours  a  day.  If  he  remains  in  the 
high  school  until  his  eighteenth  year,  long  hours  of 
labor  are  still  in  store  for  him.  What  an  immense 
advantage  for  that  boy  if  those  four  intervening 
years  could  be  spent  in  laborious  and  exacting 
exercises  performed,  not  for  an  indifferent  em- 
ployer, but  under  the  wise  and  discriminating  su- 
pervision of  trained  teachers.  Seven  hours  a  day 
during  five  days  a  week  and  at  least  three  hours  on 
Saturday  would  not  be  too  many  for  the  high- 
school  pupil:  provided,  of  course,  that  these  ex- 
tended sessions  were  not  spent  in  a  treadmill  of 
brain  worry,  but  were  properly  divided  among 
recitations,  laboratory  work,  manual  and  vocational 
training,  drawing,  and  gymnastics,  and  that  during 
these  sessions,  not  afterward,  the  greater  part  of 
the  pupil's  studying  should  be  done.  The  worst, 
and  one  of  the  commonest,  of  habits  is  that  of 
dawdling.  Few  things  contribute  more  to  foster 
it  than  home  study,  where  the  average  boy  or  girl, 
without  method  or  definiteness,  with  no  acquired 
power  of  concentration,  only  half  understanding  and 
totally  indifferent,  yawns  the  evening  away  in  an 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  105 

attempt  to  learn  lessons  which,  under  intelligent 
supervision,  might  be  acquired,  and  acquired  pleas- 
urably,  within  an  hour. 

Half  the  task  of  the  schools  should  be  to  teach 
youth  how  to  learn;  for  the  popular  ignorance  and 
indifference  regarding  social  and  political  questions 
vital  to  the  Republic  are  due,  in  great  measure,  to 
the  fact  that  the  people,  at  school,  have  never 
learned  how  to  bring  their  minds  to  bear  upon  new 
problems.  Any  necessity  of  thought  or  of  in- 
ductive reasoning  fills  them  with  dismay.  If  the 
scope  of  the  high  school  could  be  so  broadened  as 
to  attract  a  far  larger  proportion  of  youth,  if  its 
day  could  be  lengthened  and  filled  with  a  variety 
of  systematic  and  carefully  correlated  exercises 
tending  to  develop,  among  other  things,  the  power 
of  concentration,  the  vocations  would  find  a  new 
race  seeking  admission  to  them,  a  race  able  to  develop 
old  and  to  acquire  new  ideas,  a  race  not  only  know- 
ing how  to  work,  but  not  afraid  to  work,  a  race 
regarding  whom  no  employer  would  think  of  assert- 
ing that  it  had  been  spoiled  by  schooling. 

Unhappily,  one  cannot  establish  courses  in  gump- 
tion, but  one  can  put  into  the  high  school  many 
subjects  that  promote  its  growth.  Foremost  among 
these  will  be  mathematics,  the  sciences,  and  sound 
manual  training:  anything,  indeed,  suited  to  high- 


io6  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

school  age,  which  compels  a  youth  to  do  his  own 
studying  and  thinking  and  to  use,  in  the  highest  pos- 
sible measure,  the  inductive  method.  How  com- 
pletely the  stereotyped  secondary  course  of  but 
a  few  years  ago  failed  to  promote  sharpness  of  the 
faculties,  exactness  of  observation,  quickness  of 
thought,  readiness  of  inference!  Yet  what  voca- 
tion in  these  electric  days  does  not  demand,  above 
all  else,  those  qualities? 

Manual  power,  handiness,  arises  from  the  same 
sources  and  methods  of  teaching  as  does  gump- 
tion, for  the  two  are  in  close  relation.  The  stupid, 
unalert  mind  and  the  awkward  hand  have  their 
root  equally  in  a  sluggish  nervous  system,  un- 
aroused  interest,  unstirred  ambition.  Find  studies 
that  will  supply  these  deficiencies  and  the  boy  will 
be  transformed.  Some  pupils  will  need  one  stimu- 
lus, some  another;  but  the  readiest  way  to  find  what 
is  required  is  through  the  laboratory  and  the  work- 
shop, where,  as  in  no  other  place,  the  wise  teacher 
can  read  the  inmost  workings  of  the  pupil's  nature 
and  determine,  almost  without  fail,  what  stimulus 
must  be  supplied  to  arouse  the  dormant  faculties. 

Good  health  may  not  lend  itself  to  examination 
by  the  colleges;  yet  the  high-school  authorities 
have  no  greater  duty  than  to  preserve  and  foster  it. 
However  wicked  it  may  seem  to  spend  the  people's 


VOCATIONAL  TRAINING  107 

money  upon  gymnasiums  rather  than  upon  "book- 
learning,"  their  taxes  cannot  be  put  at  any  more 
profitable  usury.  The  money  loss  to  the  country 
through  preventable  illness,  untimely  death,  and 
disease-induced  crime  is  appalling.  Even  greater, 
if  possible,  is  the  loss  through  the  mental  and  physi- 
cal inefficiency  of  workers  kept  in  a  low  state  of 
health  by  bad  food,  lack  of  proper  exercise,  and 
other  non-hygienic  conditions.  Therefore,  not  only 
should  gymnastic  exercise  be  made  as  serious  as  any 
other  study  of  the  high  school;  the  sound,  sensible, 
and  complete  teaching  and  practice  of  hygiene 
should  extend  throughout  the  course.  No  foolish 
maundering  about  alcohol  and  tobacco,  but  a 
thorough  training  in  right  physical  living  that  will 
fortify  against  intemperance  of  every  kind. 

With  high-school  courses  aiming  to  preserve  sound 
bodies,  to  develop  quickness  of  observation,  clear- 
ness of  thought,  readiness  of  reasoning;  with  its 
lengthened  day  distributed  judiciously  over  a  wide 
range  of  mental,  manual,  and  gymnastic  exercises; 
with  the  powers  of  its  pupils  thus  educated  in  the 
highest  degree  —  self-understanding,  self-respect, 
self-government,  except  in  born  degenerates,  will 
follow  almost  as  a  matter  of  course.  And  upon 
these  depend  good  morals.  Secure,  therefore,  a 
rational,  flexible,  real  secondary  education  main- 


xoS  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

tained  by  professional,  not  amateur,  teachers  of  the 
highest  personal  ideals,  and  the  good  morals  of  those 
who  receive  it  will  be  practically  assured.  Without 
this,  or,  indeed,  with  it,  didactic  morality  is  wholly 
ineffectual. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    PRESSING    NEED   FOR    INDUSTRIAL    EDUCATION 

FOR  present  purposes  industrial  education  may 
be  divided  into  (l)  technological  education, 
through  which,  after  graduation  from  a 
secondary  school  or  college,  a  youth  is  prepared 
for  a  profession  other  than  that  of  divinity  or 
law;  (2)  technical  education,  by  which  is  meant 
that  special  training  through  which  a  youth  is  fitted 
to  become  a  foreman,  manager  or  superintendent 
of  a  particular  industry  or  group  of  industries;  (3) 
trade  education,  through  which  a  boy  or  girl  is 
prepared  to  enter  an  industry  or  group  of  industries 
at  a  stage  not  far  below  that  of  journeyman;  and 
(4)  manual  training,  under  which  are  included  those 
school  exercises  that  train  the  hands  —  and  also  the 
eye  —  not  primarily  for  the  industrial  but  mainly 
for  the  educational  result.  Making  a  cleavage  in 
the  other  plane,  all  these  types  of  education  divide 
themselves,  broadly,  into  day  schools,  night  schools, 
and  part-time  schools :  into  schools  where  the  pupil's 
first  business  is  .education;  into  those  which  are 

109 


no  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

merely  supplementary  to  the  daily,  gainful  occupa- 
tion; and  into  those  where  the  vocation  and  the 
school  work  go  forward  hand  in  hand.  Additional 
to  these  and  rivaling,  in  point  of  numbers,  all  the 
others  put  together,  are  the  correspondence  schools, 
which  at  least  show  how  great  must  be  the  need  of 
and  the  desire  for  technical  training  since  so  many 
tens  of  thousands  of  men  and  women  will  pay  con- 
siderable sums  to  secure  instruction  through  the 
unsatisfactory  medium  of  the  post-office.  We  may, 
however,  ignore  these  correspondence  schools,  for 
confessedly  they  occupy  only  a  temporary  void 
which  must  eventually  be  filled  by  regular  school 
agencies.  We  may  neglect,  also,  the  higher  insti- 
tutions, since  the  education  given  by  such  colleges 
is  professional  rather  than  merely  technical. 

Let  us  then  consider  the  opportunities  for  true 
industrial  education,  under  the  direction  of  a  teacher 
and  in  buildings  designed  for  school  purposes,  for 
boys  and  girls  from  ten  to  twenty  years  of  age.  I 
set  this  somewhat  narrow  limit  because,  despite  the 
fact  that  apprenticeship  is  substantially  dead,  there 
is  still  a  good  deal  of  apprentice-teaching  of  one 
kind  and  another,  in  a  wide  range  of  trades  and 
industries  and  under  every  sort  of  good  and  bad 
condition.  These  opportunities  within  the  indus- 
tries are,  however,  so  scattered,  so  incomplete,  in 


NEED  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION      in 

many  cases  still  so  much  in  the  experimental  stage, 
that  it  would  hardly  be  worth  while,  even  were  it 
possible,  to  consider  and  compare  them. 

Turning  first  to  technical  education  proper,  we 
find  the  manufacturing  regions  rich  in  opportunities 
for  youth  to  fit  themselves  for  executive  positions 
in  the  trades  and  industries,  to  fit  themselves,  that 
is,  for  the  duties  of  foreman,  superintendent,  etc., 
from  which  positions  it  is  easy,  in  this  country,  to 
rise  into  industrial  and  economic  power.  The  fellow 
who  wants  to  get  on  in  the  world  appeals  strongly  to 
all  Americans  and  especially  to  those  of  wealth  who 
are  themselves  self-made  men.  Therefore  we  find 
in  almost  every  city,  day  schools,  night  schools, 
"continuation"  schools,  special  classes,  lectures, 
model  shops  and  museums  giving  opportunity  for  a 
youth  who  is  or  has  been  industrially  employed  to 
fit  himself  for  positions  of  greater  scope  and  respon- 
sibility. This  is  the  origin  of  those  endowed  in- 
stitutions of  which  the  Cooper  Union  in  New  York, 
the  Pratt  Institute  in  Brooklyn,  the  Drexel  Institute 
in  Philadelphia,  and  the  Lowell  Free  School  for 
Industrial  Foremen  in  Boston  are  typical  examples. 
Most  of  such  institutions  conduct  day  classes,  with 
definite  curricula;  but  the  bulk  of  their  instruction 
is  given  in  evening  classes  crowded  with  eager 
students  who,  notwithstanding  they  have  already 


H2  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

performed  a  hard  day's  work,  come  evening  after 
evening,  applying  themselves  with  that  zeal  and 
thoroughness  which  only  an  immediate  and  pressing 
motive  can  induce. 

Besides  these,  we  have  such  classes  as  those  of 
the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association,  and  of 
various  other  semi-philanthropic  agencies  —  secular, 
religious,  and  semi-religious  —  which  use  technical 
education  primarily  to  uplift  their  young  men  and 
women,  but  also  as  a  means  of  attaching  them  to  the 
institutions  of  which  this  work  is  but  one  of  the 
activities.  And,  finally,  we  have  a  few  institutions, 
like  the  Williamson  School,  in  the  suburbs  of  Phila- 
delphia, which  take  possession  of  the  young  man 
for  some  years  and  give  him  a  thorough  training, 
mentally  and  technically,  for  foremanship  in  a  trade, 
making  him  work  out  with  his  own  hands  substan- 
tially every  type  of  problem,  whether  in  building, 
masonry,  ironwork,  plumbing,  electricity  or  mech- 
anism, which  is  likely  ever  to  be  presented  to  him. 

Speaking  generally,  all  such  auxiliary  modes  of 
education  give  a  good  body  of  academic  training 
specialized  more  or  less  to  meet  the  needs  of  in- 
dustrial occupations,  and  they  provide,  beyond  that, 
such  technical  training  in  physics,  chemistry,  draw- 
ing, mechanics,  architecture,  etc.,  as  will  enable  the 
graduate  to  fill  an  executive  position,  of  greater  or 


NEED  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION      113 

less  responsibility,  in  one  or  more  of  the  many  and 
rapidly  multiplying  trades,  industries,  and  technical 
professions.  Most  of  them  give,  moreover,  such 
preliminary  instruction  as  seems  feasible  for  the 
various  lines  of  mercantile  employment.  The 
courses  and  the  efficiency  of  these  many  agencies 
differ  exceedingly;  but  the  aim  of  all  of  them  is  to 
ascertain  the  intellectual  and  technical  demands  for 
advancement  and  eventual  leadership  in  the  several 
industries  and  to  encourage  youth  employed  in  those 
or  in  other  occupations  to  prepare  themselves  to 
fulfil  them. 

Technological  schools  and  technical  schools,  how- 
ever, exist  superlatively,  if  not  solely,  for  training 
the  officers  of  the  industrial  army.  In  both  types 
there  is  given  every  opportunity  for  young  men  and 
women  of  energy,  industry,  and  determination  to 
get  an  education  and  to  make  that  education  the 
stepping-stone  to  the  highest  industrial  and  intel- 
lectual achievement.  And,  as  has  already  been  said, 
the  giving  of  this  opportunity  so  appeals  to  us 
Americans  that  we  need  never  fear  a  dearth  of  in- 
stitutions in  which  every  youth  who  wants  to  do  so 
may  secure  —  even  though  it  be  through  much 
hardship  and  privation  —  an  education  for  leader- 
ship in  the  industrial  army. 

But  what  of  the  rank  and  file  of  that  enormous 


H4  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

industrial  host?  It  was  the  royal  army  of  Hawaii, 
I  believe,  that  boasted  hundreds  of  officers  and  not 
a  single  private;  but  are  we  not,  also,  paying  too 
much  attention  to  the  training  of  officers,  too  little 
to  the  men  and  women  who  do  the  fighting  in  this 
ceaseless  struggle  to  subdue  nature  to  the  service 
of  mankind?  To  secure  and  maintain  industrial 
power,  we  need  not  more  and  better  officers,  we 
need  not  more  and  better  machinery,  we  need  higher 
skilled  and  better  disciplined  privates  behind  those 
tools  and  machines.  To-day,  it  seems  to  me,  we 
find  ourselves  confronted  with  the  evil  results  of 
this  over-concern  for  the  development  of  the  in- 
dustrial superstructure,  of  this  under-attention  to 
the  strengthening  of  the  foundations  upon  which 
that  structure  has  to  rest.  We  find  everywhere, 
that  is,  a  dearth  of  men  of  skill,  men  who  think 
about  their  work,  men  who  take  pride  in  a  good  job, 
men  who  are  striving,  as  are  the  German  workmen, 
to  put  the  entire  nation  in  the  industrial  forefront. 
The  industrial  leaders  of  Germany  say  —  and  I 
think  with  reason  —  that  they  have  no  fear  of  our 
competition  in  manufactures,  so  many  years  behind 
are  we  in  the  training  for  his  work  of  the  average 
workingman.  Yet  in  native  ingenuity  we  are  ahead 
of  the  Germans,  while  in  highly  educated  industrial 
executives  we  are  fast  overtaking  her. 


NEED  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION      115 

Our  backwardness  —  which  must  be  patent  to 
every  one  who  has  to  do  with  industries  —  is  partly 
due,  of  course,  to  the  fact  that  we  have  only  lately 
entered  the  world's  markets  and  realized  the  demands 
made  by  international  competition.  It  is  due,  how- 
ever, in  far  greater  measure  to  what  seem  to  me 
false  notions  respecting  education.  We  have  been 
so  fearful  lest  we  should  not  give  every  boy  and  girl 
an  equal  chance  that  we  have  ended  by  cheating  a 
great  proportion  of  them  out  of  any  chance  what- 
ever. We  have  been  so  afraid  of  establishing  a 
caste  system  that  we  have  developed  the  most 
wretched  caste  of  all,  a  caste  of  men  and  women  with 
no  definite  trade  or  occupation  and  with  no  chance 
to  acquire  one. 

On  the  ground  that  all  children  should  have  equal 
opportunity,  we  have  established  an  elementary 
school  course  practically  the  same  for  every  pupil 
whether  he  is  to  go  out  as  a  day  laborer  at  fourteen 
or  is  eventually  to  graduate  from  a  professional 
school  at  twenty-five.  More  than  this,  the  only 
test  of  this  elementary  education  lies  in  examina- 
tions which,  however  remote  from  the  college,  are 
really  dictated  indirectly  by  the  university's  de- 
mands. The  result  is  that,  instead  of  giving  a 
democratic  training,  we  really  have  established  a 
very  special  kind  of  education  which,  if  it  ceases  — 


ii6  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

as  for  most  children  it  does  —  at  fourteen,  fits  a 
child  only  (and  that  most  imperfectly)  for  some 
clerical  vocation.  In  addition  to  thus  giving  in  the 
elementary  public  schools  what  is  actually  a  limited 
class  education,  we  also  create  the  mischievous  im- 
pression that  to  be  honorable  and  genteel  one  must 
work  with  the  head,  rather  than  with  the  hands, 
thus  desperately  overcrowding  the  most  poorly  paid 
occupations  while  failing  to  supply  in  any  adequate 
measure  those  skilled  trades  which  offer  a  com- 
paratively high  reward.  Furthermore,  though  seek- 
ing to  avoid  caste  distinctions,  we  actually  create 
a  real  proletariat  through  economic  conditions 
which  make  it  impossible  for  the  vast  majority  of 
boys  and  girls  to  go  to  school  after  the  fourteenth 
year,  and  thus  to  take  advantage  of  the  special 
opportunities  which  are  provided,  at  public  cost, 
for  those  children  whose  economic  status  does  per- 
mit of  their  attending  the  high  school. 

It  may  be  said  in  answer  that,  in  ever-increasing 
measure,  we  are  providing  manual  training  in  the 
schools.  Did  this  training  reach,  as  it  does  not, 
any  more  than  a  small  fraction  of  the  children 
who  need  industrial  development,  it  still  has,  con- 
fessedly, serious  deficiencies  as  a  form  of  technical 
training.  Founded,  as  it  generally  is,  upon  the 
so-called  Russian  system,  it  is  limited  in  scope  and 


NEED  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION       117 

hangs  in  pedagogical  air  between  unrelated  earlier 
studies  and  an  unconnected  later  vocation.  Being 
devised  for  classes  rather  than  for  the  individual, 
it  allows,  on  the  one  hand,  little  play  for  individual- 
ity, and,  on  the  other,  almost  none  of  that  working 
together  which  is  fundamental  to  a  right  industrial 
spirit.  Worst  of  all,  it  repudiates  economic  utility 
and  —  with  great  loss  to  the  pupil  —  emphasizes 
the  fact  that  its  purpose  is  educational,  not  indus- 
trial. Regarded  simply  from  the  pedagogical  stand- 
point, manual  training  should  begin  the  moment  a 
child  enters  school  and  should  progress  by  rational 
stages  to  a  shop-work  which,  while  being  exact 
and  thorough,  should  permit  of  spontaneity  and 
inventiveness,  should  emphasize  group  work  and 
the  constructional  side  and,  above  all,  whether  or 
not  the  pupil  is  to  go  into  industrial  life,  should 
connect  itself  in  the  closest  possible  way  with  the 
industries  of  the  neighborhood  and  of  the  city  or 
town  wherein  the  child  resides.  Far  more  should 
manual  training  do  these  things  from  the  industrial 
standpoint;  and  because  it  does  not,  it  cannot  yet 
be  considered  an  important  factor  in  solving  this 
pressing  problem  of  technical  training  for  the  rank 
and  file. 

The  first  thing  to  be  done,  it  seems  to  me,  is 
frankly    to    acknowledge    that    an    overwhelming 


ii8  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

majority  of  public-school  children  are  obliged,  by 
unchangeable  economic  necessity,  to  leave  school  at 
fourteen  —  or  as  early  as  the  law  allows  —  and  to 
enter,  for  the  rest  of  their  lives,  some  industrial 
occupation.  That  being  so,  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
community  to  fit  them  for  that  inevitable  vocation 
just  as  the  college  and  school  of  technology  fit  for 
the  higher  vocations,  not  by  teaching  the  knacks 
and  tricks  of  any  special  trade,  but  by  training 
those  senses,  aptitudes,  and  general  powers  which 
lie  at  the  foundation  of  industrial  efficiency.  There 
are  certain  fundamental  studies  which  every  child 
must,  of  course,  take  up.  There  are,  moreover, 
certain  virtues,  such  as  honesty,  diligence,  patriot- 
ism, which  every  school  should  endeavor  to  instil. 
But  in  addition  to  those,  the  course  of  every  ele- 
mentary school  should  develop  in  the  highest  degree 
possible  to  every  child  his  powers  of  seeing  clearly, 
hearing  intelligently,  and  using  his  hands  skilfully, 
and  should  teach  him  how  to  work.  Moreover, 
school  courses  should  be  so  elastic  and  adaptable  to 
the  individual  as  to  meet  the  special  requirements 
of  the  neighborhood  or  of  the  town  in  which  the 
school  is  placed,  and  to  give  every  child  at  least  the 
root  principles  of  that  trade  in  which  he  is  most 
likely  to  find  ready  and  profitable  employment. 
Even  this,  however,  would  meet  in  but  very  small 


H9 

degree  the  pressing  needs  of  the  industrial  situation. 
There  should  further  be  provided  on  a  large  and 
generous  scale,  in  both  the  mechanic  and  agricultural 
arts,  not  only  a  definite  industrial  training  for  the 
young  men  and  women  of  push  and  ambition  who 
seek  the  higher  places,  but  also  a  real  bread  and- 
butter  education  for  the  infinitely  greater  number 
who  desire,  of  course,  a  decent  wage  and  a  steady 
job,  but  who  have  neither  the  brains  nor  the  am- 
bition to  take  advantage  of  the  opportunities  which, 
as  I  have  tried  to  show,  are  being  provided  with 
perhaps  needless  liberality.  I  may  best  indicate 
the  general  type  of  opportunity  which  these  over- 
whelming numbers  of  our  boys  and  girls  ought  to 
have  by  describing  briefly  two  schools:  the  Man- 
hattan Trade  School  for  Girls  and  the  Baron  de 
Hirsch  Trade  School,  both  in  New  York  City. 

The  first-named  school,  troubling  itself  little 
about  theories  of  a  rounded  education  or  of  an  out- 
raged democracy,  undertook  to  meet  a  definite  con- 
dition :  that  of  girls  leaving  school  at  fourteen  unable 
to  get  a  living  wage,  and  finding  it  almost  impossible 
to  fit  themselves  to  earn  that  wage,  a  condition  even 
more  serious  in  its  moral  than  in  its  ecoriomic 
aspects.  The  school  meets  the  problem  by  finding 
out  what  industrial  opportunities  there  are  for 
trained  girls  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  and  by  educating 


i2o  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

those  girls  strictly  and  solely  to  meet  those  oppor- 
tunities. The  pupils  receive,  of  course,  some  train- 
ing in  writing,  number  work,  etc.,  but  even  that  is 
designed  for  business;  while  no  girl  is  taught  the 
whole  of  a  trade  in  all  its  developments  and  rami- 
fications. She  is  prepared  in  only  so  much  of  it  as  a 
girl  of  sixteen  can  enter,  it  being  clear  that  if  she  once 
gets  a  foothold  as  a  trained  assistant,  she  can,  if  she 
will,  rise  by  industry  to  the  highest  positions  which 
that  trade  may  offer.  In  millinery,  for  example, 
this  school  wastes  no  time  in  teaching  a  child  to  trim 
hats,  for  there  is  no  possibility  of  her  doing  that  kind 
of  work  for  a  number  of  years.  In  dressmaking, 
again,  the  school  trains  neither  fitters  nor  finishers, 
for  such  positions  are  out  of  the  reach  of  girls  of 
sixteen;  while  there  is  a  strong  and  steady  demand 
for  such  girls  in  those  simple  branches  of  dressmaking 
in  which  this  school  gives  the  pupils  a  thorough  and 
practical  training  under  the  supervision  of  genuine 
forewomen  and  under  the  very  best  conditions  of  the 
actual  shop.  The  result  is  that  after  a  compara- 
tively short  time  (varying,  of  course,  with  the  in- 
dividual) the  girl  is  in  demand  at  five  dollars  a  week 
(without  the  training  she  could  command  not  over 
three  dollars)  and  rapidly  rises  to  a  much  higher 
rate  of  pay.  Boston  hg&~a,  similar  Trade  School  for 
Girls  on  Massachusetts  Avenue. 


NEED  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION      121 

The  Baron  de  Hirsch  Trade  School  takes  Russian 
Jews  at  sixteen  or  seventeen  —  pedlers,  errand 
boys,  casual  workers  of  all  kinds  —  and  in  five  and 
a  half  months  of  hard  training  under  shop  conditions 
fits  them  to  be  helpers  in  the  carpentering,  metal 
working,  plumbing,  and  other  trades  at  an  average 
wage,  immediately  upon  graduation,  of  over  seven 
dollars  per  week,  rising  rapidly  to  two  and  three 
times  that  sum.  Without  training,  these  boys  would 
hardly  earn  five  dollars  a  week  and  would  have,  more- 
over, no  outlook  except  to  be  always  "casuals." 

Facing,  as  such  schools  as  these  have  done,  facts 
and  not  theories,  we  must,  it  seems  to  me,  find  some 
way  of  establishing,  on  a  comprehensive  scale,  real 
trade  schools  which  shall  take  substantially  every 
child  whom  necessity  drives  into  work  at  the  end  of 
the  legal  age  and  fit  him  for  some  occupation  for 
which  he  is  suited  and  in  which  there  is  an  economic 
demand.  Whether  or  not  this  shall  be  done  at 
public  cost,  it  is  not  yet  time  to  say,  though  I  be- 
lieve that  it  would  be  more  just  to  spend  the  common 
revenues  in  this  way  than  upon  high-school  pupils 
whose  parents  are  perfectly  able  to  pay  a  tuition 
fee.  But  for  the  starting  of  such  schools  there  is  an 
abundance  of  private  funds,  provided  the  givers 
or  the  trustees  can  be  made  to  see  that  the  need  for 
training  the  rank  and  file  is  so  much  greater  than  for 


122  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

developing  officers  in  the  industrial  army.  The 
chief  obstacles  are  not,  however,  financial;  they  are 
those  of  prejudice:  the  prejudice  of  the  educator 
who  sees  danger  to  the  ancient  theories  of  "culture," 
"breadth"  and  all  their  satellites;  the  prejudice  of 
the  citizen  who  fears  the  development  of  caste  and 
the  destruction  of  the  sacred  first  clause  of  the  Dec- 
laration; and  the  prejudice  of  the  labor  organiza- 
tions, who  cannot  yet  be  made  to  understand  that 
the  good  of  one  worker  is  the  good  of  the  whole,  and 
that  the  greatest  enemy  to  Labor  is  the  industrial 
ignorance  of  its  rank  and  file. 

Therefore,  the  most  pressing  business  of  education, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  to  educate  away  these  diverse  and 
deep-seated  prejudices.  It  must  persuade  its  own 
followers  that  the  only  truly  educated  man  is  he 
who  has  been  developed  to  his  fullest  powers,  and 
that  those  powers  can  be  best  matured  by  activities 
related  to  the  child's  present  life  and  future  in- 
terests. It  must  persuade  the  public  that  to  develop 
a  good  citizen  one  must  first  make  a  good  earner, 
and  that  no  man  is  industrially  efficient  whose  train- 
ing for  making  a  living  has  been  left  wholly  to  chance. 
It  must  persuade  —  for  it  is  impossible  to  defy  — 
the  labor  unions  that  just  as  educated  physicians, 
lawyers,  and  engineers  have  raised  not  only  the 
standing  but  also  the  standards  of  compensation  in 


NEED  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION      123 

those  professions,  so  training  in  the  industries  will 
elevate  not  only  the  quality  but  also  the  value  of 
the  skilled  laborer's  work.  There  is  at  present  so 
much  loss  and  waste,  and  therefore  so  much  risk 
in  all  industry  through  ignorance  and  lack  of  skill, 
that  capital  has  to  insure  itself  by  taking  a  larger 
profit  (when  there  is  one)  than,  under  the  immensely 
improved  conditions  which  would  follow  a  wide- 
spread trade  education,  it  would  need,  or  would  be 
permitted,  to  receive. 

Meeting  the  pupil,  then,  at  the  end  of  the  legal 
school  age,  and  finding  him,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  with 
senses  and  understanding  already  rightly  educated 
by  a  comprehensive  general  and  judicious  special 
training,  the  technical  school  of  the  future,  in  close 
working  cooperation  with  the  manufacturers,  will 
give  those  two  or  three  years  up  to  seventeen  —  now 
of  little  value  industrially  but  of  immense  impor- 
tance morally  —  to  the  work  of  preparing  that  pupil 
for  some  definite  trade,  industry  or  occupation.  In 
doing  this  it  will  have  regard  to  the  native  capacity 
of  the  child,  to  the  circumstances  in  which  he  is 
placed,  and  to  the  industrial  needs  of  his  town  or 
neighborhood.  Whether  or  not  the  graduate  from 
such  a  school  follows  the  line  of  his  training  is  of 
little  consequence;  the  very  fact  that  he  has  a  trade 
gives  him  a  power  and  manliness  unknown  to  the 


i24  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

helpless  "casual"  whom,  under  present  methods, 
the  school  now  sets  adrift  at  fourteen.  And  that 
he  has  a  trade  by  no  means  fetters  him  to  a  special 
industry  or  to  any  industrial  stratum;  if  he  has 
ability  and  push  he  will  rise  and  find  his  true  voca- 
tion just  as  rapidly  as  he  can  now  progress  with  an 
alleged  all-round  education.  Indeed,  he  will  go  for- 
ward far  more  easily,  for  he  will  be  able,  through 
the  fact  of  having  a  trade,  to  secure  that  first  foot- 
hold which,  with  "self-made"  men,  is  the  most 
difficult  and  disheartening  step.  The  effect  of  such 
technical  schools  upon  the  general  welfare  of  the 
community:  the  direct  effect  in  increasing  industrial 
efficiency  and  prosperity  and  the  indirect  influence 
in  diminishing  the  number  of  incompetents,  unfor- 
tunates, and  other  social  wrecks  and  burdens,  will  be, 
unquestionably,  so  great  as  literally  to  re-form  our 
industrial  and  social  structure;  while  their  reactive 
effect  upon  elementary  education  in  giving  its  proc- 
esses a  clear  aim,  thus  invigorating  and  vitalizing 
them  through  and  through,  will  be  no  less  salutary. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    DEMANDS    OF    BUSINESS 

IN  THE  early  years  of  the  present  century.  Prince 
Henry  of  Prussia  visited  the  United  States  as 
the  personal  representative  of  the  German 
Emperor.  As  is  our  habit  with  royalty,  our  adula- 
tions were  even  deeper  and  sillier  than  in  countries 
where  they  are  used  to  kings.  The  culmination  of 
our  foolishness  was  in  a  dinner  given  to  him  in  New 
York,  to  which  were  invited  only  the  so-called 
"Captains  of  Industry."  These  were  about  a 
hundred  in  number  and  included  steel,  oil,  and  rail- 
way magnates,  insurance  company  presidents,  and 
other  millionaires  and  multi-millionaires. 

This  bringing  of  the  lions  together  for  exhibition 
to  the  royal  representative  of  Germany  was  harmless 
in  itself;  the  mischief  came  through  the  newspapers 
and  magazines  which  for  weeks  and  months  there- 
after were  rilled  with  glorifications  of  these  wonder- 
ful leaders,  with  implications  that  their  ability  was 
of  superhuman  character,  and  with  exhortations  to 
young  men  to  make  their  lives  worthy  to  be  men- 


126  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

tioned  in  the  same  category  with  those  of  the  em- 
perors of  modern  life. 

Within  less  than  a  year,  however,  the  bubble  of 
money  worship  burst.  The  son  of  a  dead  captain 
fell  foul  of  some  of  the  living  captains,  and  from  one 
revelation  to  another  the  sickening  story  went  on 
of  conspiracy,  cheating,  misuse  of  funds,  and  common 
thievery,  through  which  not  a  few  of  these  magnates 
had  risen  to  their  financial  eminence.  It  was  mainly 
a  story  of  bribery  of  legislation,  of  employment  of 
trust  funds  for  private  speculation,  of  building  up 
private  fortunes  through  the  wholesale  corruption 
of  public  morals.  The  worst  of  it,  however,  was 
this :  that  although  many  newspaper  representatives, 
and  therefore  many  newspaper  editors,  had  been 
familiar  with  the  main  facts  of  this  rottenness  for 
twenty  years,  they  had  all  joined  in  the  adulation 
of  these  Captains  of  Industry  and  in  the  exhortations 
to  young  men  to  take  these  magnates  as  models  for 
a  really  noteworthy  career.  Had  the  balloon  not 
burst,  the  painting  of  black  as  white  would  seemingly 
have  gone  on  indefinitely. 

That  period  of  moral  readjustment  was  a  crucial 
one  in  the  history  of  the  United  States,  in  com- 
parison with  which  other  crises,  like  those  of  the 
Revolution,  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution,  and  the 
election  of  1860,  are  comparatively  small.  Had  the 


THE  DEMANDS  OF  BUSINESS  127 

Captains-of-Industry  bubble  not  been  pricked,  had 
those  exalted  thieves  been  worshipped  for  a  few 
years  longer,  such  corruption  would  have  been  in- 
stilled into  the  body  politic,  such  widespread  con- 
fusion of  right  and  wrong  would  have  ensued,  that 
the  country  would  almost  certainly  have  gone,  like 
perverted  Rome,  to  a  deserved  decay.  Fortunately 
the  corruptors  of  public  morals  quarreled,  the  sound 
ethical  sense  of  the  people  revolted  at  the  exposed 
financial  nastiness,  and  the  federal  and  state  govern- 
ments lent  powerful  aid  in  bringing  back  the  true 
meanings  of  commercial  right  and  wrong.  Mr. 
Roosevelt,  like  all  ardent  and  impulsive  men,  made 
not  a  few  mistakes;  but  this  country  owes  him  an 
everlasting  debt  for  his  downrightness  of  speech  and 
action  at  that  critical  time. 

The  business  world,  since  the  life  insurance  cata- 
clysm, is  not,  of  course,  a  community  of  saints.  It  is 
still  an  aggregation  of  men,  with  all  the  faults  and 
weaknesses  of  human  nature.  But,  since  the  down- 
fall of  the  Captains-of-Industry  worship,  the  moral 
vision  of  the  so-called  man-in-the-street  has  been 
changed  and  clarified.  There  is  still  plenty  of 
cheating,  stealing,  falsifying,  and  "knifing"  (to  use 
an  expressive  word)  in  business,  but  these  things  are 
no  longer  legitimate  and  praiseworthy.  There  has 
come  back  into  the  commercial  world  the  old-time 


128  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

respect  for  sound  industry  and  solid  worth;  there  has 
been  restored  a  genuine  belief  that  "honesty  is  the 
best  policy";  and  it  is  now  possible  to  tell  a  young 
man,  without  an  ironical  wink,  that  the  surest  road 
to  abiding  success  is  through  hard  work  and  unfalter- 
ing probity.  Tinsel  and  paste  are  still  admired  and 
run  after  in  the  business,  as  in  the  marriage  market; 
but  they  are  no  longer  accepted,  in  the  long  run,  as 
a  substitute  for  the  genuine  article. 

Every  profession,  even  the  ministry,  is  infested 
with  rogues  and  swindlers;  and,  in  these  better  days, 
if  business  seems  still  to  show  more  than  its  share,  it 
is  largely  because  the  opportunities  are  greater,  the 
total  number  in  the  profession  is  larger,  and  because 
money  evils  are  easier  to  see.  Since  these  things 
touch  one's  pocket  rather  than  one's  mind  or  soul, 
they  get  talked  about  to  a  degree  in  which  no  similar 
wickedness,  even  in  the  clerical  profession,  reaches 
the  public  ear. 

The  learned  professions,  however,  are  rapidly 
raising  their  standards  and  increasing  their  moral 
demands.  The  profession  of  business,  no  less,  must 
not  only  elevate  its  ideals,  it  must  hold  its  members 
to  stricter  moral  account  if  it  is  to  keep  pace  with 
the  progress  of  the  world. 

Were  one  attempting  a  counsel  of  perfection,  he 
would  doubtless  advocate,  as  an  ideal  preparation 


THE  DEMANDS  OF  BUSINESS  129 

for  business,  two  years  of  college,  then  one  or  two 
years  of  hard  work  in  some  manufacturing  or  mer- 
cantile establishment,  then  a  return  for  graduation 
(with  carefully  chosen  specialties)  at  college,  then 
two  years  in  that  professional  school  of  science,  law, 
or  commerce  which  bears  most  closely  upon  the 
chosen  business,  and  finally  at  least  one  year's  travel 
through  the  United  States  and  in  countries  abroad. 
To  most  young  men  this  long  program  is,  of  course, 
impossible;  and  with  many  it  might  have  the  dis- 
astrous result  seen  in  the  case  of  some  medical 
students,  who  spend  so  much  time  in  the  schools 
and  hospitals  that  when  finally,  at  about  thirty  years 
of  age,  they  are  ready  to  practise,  they  find  that  the 
spring  and  ambition  of  youth  are  practically  gone 
and,  with  them,  all  hope  of  a  great  professional 
career. 

Let  us  limit  ourselves,  then,  to  that  still  com- 
paratively very  small  class  of  men  who  can  spend 
four  years  at  college  in  preparation  for  a  business  life. 
And  let  us  start  out  with  the  conviction  that  unless 
he  absolutely  idles  away  those  four  years,  the  youth 
who  takes  a  college  course  thereby  secures  an  intel- 
lectual and  moral  advantage  over  those  who  go 
directly  into  business  from  the  elementary  or 
secondary  school,  which  the  latter  can  seldom,  if 
ever,  overcome.  For  a  college  education  means,  or 


i3o  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

should  mean,  culture,  and  culture  is  the  cream  of 
life,  is  the  fruit  of  the  tree,  is  the  supreme  end  and 
test  of  civilization.  Because,  however,  culture  has 
been  so  much  prated  about  by  intellectual  snobs, 
because,  in  homely  phrase,  it  has  been  thought  to  be 
related  more  to  the  dessert  than  to  the  solid  bread 
and  meat  of  life,  it  has  acquired  rather  an  ill  name, 
a  reputation  not  improved  by  newspaper  jokes  over 
Matthew  Arnold's  sugar-candy  phrase  of  "sweetness 
and  light."  But,  far  from  being  a  frill  and  luxury 
of  life,  culture  is  one  of  the  first  essentials  to  real 
success  and,  in  its  true  meaning,  not  in  the  restricted 
sense  of  dilettantism  to  which  we  too  often  limit  it, 
the  only  really  successful  man  is  he  who  possesses 
culture.  For  to  have  true  culture  means  that  a  man 
has  a  mind  furnished  with  many  things  beyond  and 
above  the  matters  which  concern  his  livelihood;  that 
he  has  breadth  of  view,  knowledge  of  the  world,  skill 
in  dealing  with  men,  ability  to  foresee  and  intelli- 
gence to  grapple  with  the  complex  problems  which 
meet  one  every  day.  This  true  culture  the  college 
graduate  should  have,  and,  having  it,  he  possesses 
a  lifelong  advantage  which  nothing  can  take  away. 
College  men  who  are  going  into  business  may  be 
roughly  divided  into  two  classes :  those  who,  by  early 
definition  of  choice  or  by  family  opportunity,  are 
looking  forward  to  some  particular  occupation,  and 


THE  DEMANDS  OF  BUSINESS  131 

those  who  are  going  into  "just  business,"  this  latter 
class  being  wholly  at  sea  as  to  whether  that  business 
is  to  be  manufacturing,  transportation,  or  whole- 
sale or  retail  trade.  Each  should  acquire,  as  a 
fundamental  tool,  a  good  working  knowledge  of  the 
principles  of  mercantile  exchange,  of  what  may  be 
called  the  alphabet  of  business  —  familiarity,  that  is, 
with  the  essentials  of  accounting,  with  the  nature  of 
checks,  notes,  stocks,  bonds,  etc.,  and  with  the 
writing  of  a  business  letter  couched  in  the  phraseology 
of  the  work-a-day  world.  There  is  an  astounding 
ignorance  on  the  part  of  the  average  college  graduate 
regarding  these  simple  questions,  and  to  that  ig- 
norance is  due  in  no  small  degree  the  widespread 
impression  that  a  college  career  is  of  little  use  in 
mercantile  affairs.  Just  as  bad  spelling  makes  an 
unfavorable  impression  far  in  excess  of  its  real 
importance,  so  this  type  of  ignorance  produces 
an  effect  upon  employers  way  beyond  its  actual 
significance. 

Secondly,  the  young  business  man  must  be  both 
able  and  willing  to  do  a  lot  of  hard  work,  not  by  occa- 
sional spurts  of  energy,  but  of  the  steady,  grinding 
kind  through  which  alone  he  can  master  the  infinite 
details  of  whatever  industry  he  may  enter,  can  over- 
come the  daily  difficulties  and  discouragements  which 
he  is  sure  to  meet,  and  can  rise  above  the  clerical 


i32  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

rank  and  file  into  those  positions  of  responsibility 
wherein  alone  he  can  have  a  fair  chance  to  show  what 
he  is  able  to  do. 

In  order,  however,  to  do  the  kind  of  steady,  hard 
labor  which  a  successful  career  demands,  a  young 
man  must  possess  a  body  which  is  a  well-tempered 
and  well-trained  machine.  The  essential  thing, 
therefore,  is  to  conserve  his  health,  not  undermining 
it  by  bad  eating,  bad  air,  lack  of  exercise,  smoking, 
drinking,  and  other  excesses;  not  jeopardizing  it  by 
overexertion  in  either  study  or  athletics;  and  not 
making  too  frequent  drafts,  for  social  pleasures,  upon 
the  great  reserve  fund  which,  at  college  age,  most 
persons  have.  On  the  other  hand,  he  must  de- 
liberately train  body  and  .mind,  in  the  exceptional 
opportunity  offered  by  the  college  environment,  to 
work  together,  so  that  each  shall  help  the  other  in 
keeping  sound,  in  becoming  efficient,  and  in  accom- 
plishing an  enormous  amount  of  really  telling  work. 

Beyond  the  ability  to  perform  hard  work,  however, 
there  should  be  the  constant  readiness  and  willing- 
ness to  do  it;  and  one  of  the  genuine  grievances  of 
the  business  world  against  the  college  is  that  so  many 
of  its  graduates,  likely  in  body  and  in  brain,  amount 
to  nothing  because,  in  the  college  course,  they  have 
got  into  the  habit  of  doing  just  as  little  as  possible, 
instead  of  into  the  habit  of  doing  just  as  much  as 


THE  DEMANDS  OF  BUSINESS  133 

possible.  The  employer  wants  men  coming  from 
college  to  be  in  that  state  of  mind  where  they  abhor 
idleness,  regard  waste  of  time  as  a  good  deal  worse 
than  waste  of  money,  and  look  upon  promptness, 
efficiency,  accuracy,  and  thoroughness  as  essential 
to  everything  they  undertake. 

Thirdly,  the  young  business  man  should  have 
good  judgment  (so  much,  that  is,  as  is  possible  with- 
out wide  experience  of  men  and  affairs),  quickness  of 
apprehension,  fertility  of  resource,  readiness  to 
adapt  himself  to  new  conditions,  and  willingness  to 
learn.  He  should  have,  in  short,  those  qualifications 
which  are  admirably  summed  up  in  the  good  Yankee 
word  "gumption."  Hard  work  alone  will  seldom 
achieve  success  beyond  that  of  the  faithful,  plodding 
understrapper.  "Slickness"  (to  use  another  ex- 
pressive Yankee  word),  if  it  achieve  apparent  success, 
does  so  at  the  sacrifice  of  everything  else.  But 
"gumption"  and  all  that  it  implies,  when  combined 
with  the  spirit  of  honesty  and  the  ability  and  willing- 
ness to  work,  is  absolutely  certain  (provided  a  fellow 
has  sound  health)  to  win  for  him  genuine  and  en- 
during success. 

Finally  and  superlatively,  the  business  man  must 
know  how  to  deal  with  men.  Just  as  actual  gold 
and  silver  play  very  little  part  in  actual  business 
transactions,  their  place  being  taken  by  that  in- 


i34  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

tangible  yet  most  real  thing  called  credit,  so  the 
mechanical  processes  of  production,  distribution,  and 
exchange  are  almost  insignificant  in  business  in  com- 
parison with  the  intellectual  and  moral  processes  of 
meeting,  influencing,  and  commanding  men.  The 
merchant  has  to  study  men,  to  understand  them,  to 
put  himself,  hourly,  in  right  relations  with  them  if  he 
hopes  to  succeed,  not  only  as  a  man  of  business  but 
as  a  citizen.  And  this  kaleidoscopic  problem  of 
human  intercourse  divides  itself  roughly  into  four 
main  groups:  into  the  men  above  one,  the  men  below 
one,  the  men  on  a  level  with  one,  and,  by  no  means 
least,  that  most  important  man,  one's  self.  Granted 
that  a  man's  daily  work  is  well  and  faithfully  done, 
his  business  reputation  will  come  from  his  study  of 
and  efforts  with  these  four  classes  of  human  beings, 
greater  and  smaller  in  number,  who  fill  in  the  entire 
circle  of  his  daily  world. 

As  to  a  man's  dealings  with  those  above  him,  he 
will  be  concerned  chiefly  with  two  classes:  those  who 
employ  him  and  those  other  older  persons  who  may 
have  it  in  their  power  to  help  or  to  hinder.  What 
should  be  one's  attitude  toward  these  men?  It 
should  invariably  be  that  of  respectful  self-respect. 
Diffidence  or  cringing  humility  on  the  one  hand  is  as 
much  to  be  avoided  as  "freshness"  or  obtrusiveness 
on  the  other;  but,  while  always  deferential  to  the 


THE  DEMANDS  OF  BUSINESS  135 

experience  of  these  older  men,  while  always  mindful 
that  one's  "boss"  has  a  power  which,  in  a  moment 
of  dyspepsia  or  of  irritation  toward  some  one  else, 
he  may  arbitrarily  and  unjustly  exercise  upon  you, 
no  one  should  be  awed  by  the  mere  fact  of  age.  The 
difference  in  real  feeling  (except  with  an  occasional 
curmudgeon)  between  the  elder  and  the  younger 
man  is  very  slight;  deep  down  in  his  heart  the  middle- 
aged  man,  notwithstanding  his  years  of  experience, 
is  rarely  very  confident  of  himself,  and,  not  seldom, 
is  about  as  afraid  of  the  youth  as  the  youth  is  of  him. 
Moreover,  there  is  almost  always  a  soft  spot,  half- 
compassionate,  half-regretful,  in  every  old  man's 
heart  for  youth.  "Si  jeunesse  savait;  si  vieillesse 
pouvait."  And  it  is  by  tactful  dealings  with  the 
particular  manifestations  of  these  common  attri- 
butes in  his  special  "boss"  that  many  a  man  of 
ambition  makes  his  way  to-day. 

By  this  manifest  eagerness  to  learn;  by  a  willing- 
ness, too,  to  do  anything  within  reason  and  within 
honesty  that  one's  employer  calls  upon  him  to  do; 
by  a  disposition,  moreover,  to  do  it  as  he  likes  to  have 
it  done;  above  all,  by  a  readiness  to  go  ahead  and 
do  the  thing  immediately,  quickly  and  thoroughly, 
without  any  ifs,  ands,  or  buts,  finding  out  for  himself 
how  the  job  is  to  be  undertaken,  and  throwing  him- 
self heart  and  soul  into  that  particular  task  until  it 


i36  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

is  done  and  done  right  —  by  these  things,  not  by 
toadying  or  intercession  of  relatives  or  running  down 
of  rivals,  will  the  young  employee  get  the  notice  and 
the  promotion  that,  eventually,  are  to  make  him 
master  of  his  own  career. 

Next  in  importance  to  his  relations  with  those 
above  him  is  the  question  of  a  man's  ability  in  han- 
dling those  placed  under  him.  The  marked  char- 
acteristic of  a  leader  of  men  is  that  he  not  only  can 
do  things  himself  but  can  get  them  properly  done 
by  his  subordinates.  This  executive  ability,  eminence 
in  which  is  the  master  key  to  success  in  this  age  of 
gigantic  enterprises,  is  based,  first,  on  the  power 
to  judge  the  capabilities  of  one's  subordinates 
accurately;  secondly,  on  the  ability  to  make  one's 
explanations  and  to  give  one's  orders  so  clearly  that 
these  subordinates  will  produce  just  the  results  for 
which  one  is  looking;  and,  thirdly,  on  knowing  just 
how  to  drive  the  underlings  so  that  they  may  be 
kept  at  the  highest  pressure  consistent  with  the  doing 
of  good  work,  but  may  not  feel  themselves  in  any 
degree  aggrieved  or  forced.  All  this  means  that 
one  must  give  his  subordinates  the  best  .possible 
conditions  under  which  to  work,  must  always  be 
ready  to  work  with  them  —  but  never  to  the  point 
where  any  of  them  shall  lose  his  feeling  of  personal 
responsibility  for  his  particular  share  of  the  under- 


THE  DEMANDS  OF  BUSINESS  137 

taking  —  must  always  be  fair  and  gentlemanly  (the 
word  is  used  advisedly,  for  no  man  can  ever  afford  not 
to  be  a  gentleman)  in  one's  dealings  with  them,  and 
must  exhibit  unfailing  readiness  to  work  and  buoy- 
ancy in  working. 

The  third  group  of  persons  with  whom  a  man  must 
deal  will  be  those,  so  to  speak,  on  a  level  with  him. 
This  includes,  of  course,  his  friends,  his  ordinary 
business  associates,  and  his  social  acquaintances. 
A  young  man  who  hopes  to  get  on  simply  because  he 
is  worthy  of  promotion  will  probably  remain  fixed 
like  a  sea-anemone  till  the  end  of  time;  but  give 
him  firm  friends  whom  he  has  legitimately  won  by 
virtue  of  sterling  qualities,  and  his  merits  will  not 
long  be  unheralded  and  not  much  longer  unappre- 
ciated. Not  that  even  firm  friends  are  always  to  be 
depended  upon;  competition  is  too  keen  and  human 
nature  is  too  uncertain  for  a  man's  friends  always  to 
hold  by  him.  Nevertheless,  if  a  young  man  makes 
a  business  of  securing  the  right  sort  of  acquaintances, 
and  if,  from  these,  he  makes  a  deliberate  effort  to 
cultivate  the  friendship  of  those  who  not  only  are 
decent  fellows  but  who,  in  all  probability,  will  sooner 
or  later  make  a  mark  in  the  world,  he  has  then  sur- 
rounded himself,  like  a  feudal  baron,  with  an  army 
of  unpaid  retainers  who,  in  one  way  or  another  way, 
in  less  degree  or  in  greater  measure,  will  protect  and 


I38  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

help  and  further  him  along  that  hard  and  dangerous 
road  toward  success  which  every  one  of  us  is  trying 
to  travel. 

And  last,  but  in  importance  first,  a  man  has  every 
minute  in  the  day  to  deal  with  one  unescapable  per- 
son, himself.  His  chief  work  with  this  toughest 
problem  of  all  will  be  to  strengthen  that  mainspring 
of  all  success,  his  will.  Acknowledging,  as  every  one 
must,  that  the  road  to  good  fortune,  no  matter 
whether  it  be  in  business,  in  poetry,  or  in  politics,  is 
thickly  strewn  with  disagreeable  tasks,  and  that, 
as  a  rule,  the  greater  the  prize  the  more  unpleasant 
and  apparently  thankless  the  preliminary  labor,  it 
is  plain  that  a  man,  if  he  is  to  amount  to  anything, 
must  have  his  will  in  such  training  that  it  will  bend 
his  body  and  his  mind  to  the  doing  of  the  worst 
drudgery,  to  the  facing  of  the  most  unpleasant  odds, 
to  the  accomplishing  of  what  they  set  out  to  do,  no 
matter  how  many  lions  stand  roaring  and  clawing 
in  the  path.  If  a  man  hopes  to  succeed  in  literature, 
he  must  tear  up  dozens  of  manuscripts  and  burn  gal- 
lons of  midnight  oil  before  the  public  will  even  know 
that  he  exists;  if  he  would  be  a  leader  in  public  life, 
he  must  begin  at  the  bottom  and  creep  up,  step  by 
step,  kicked,  hustled,  and  misunderstood,  till  the 
leaders  ahead  of  him  are  forced  to  see  his  worth;  if  he 
would  be  a  great  surgeon  or  a  successful  lawyer,  he 


_THE  DEMANDS  OF  BUSINESS  139 

must  long  be  patient-less  and  brief-less,  must  swal- 
low many  an  insult  and  work  many  a  day  for  nothing 
before  he  can  secure  even  the  merest  edge  of  a  foot- 
ing in  these  overfilled  professions;  if  he  would  be  a 
really  great  merchant  or  manufacturer,  a  young  man 
must  put  his  pride  in  his  pocket  for  many  a  long  week, 
must  do  work  that  is  merest  drudgery  for  many  a 
weary  month,  and,  given  the  chance  to  show  what 
he  can  do,  must  spend  many  a  sleepless  night 
studying  and  planning,  lest  through  failure  at 
this  crucial  moment  his  reputation  be  forever 
ruined.  All  this  bitterness  of  spirit  and  all  this 
drudgery  can  be  borne  only  by  a  man  of  such  will 
that  he  never  loses  sight  of  his  determination  to 
succeed,  of  such  control  over  his  will  that  it  never 
flags  in  keeping  up  his  courage,  of  such  steadiness  of 
will  that  it  holds  his  thoughts  and  curbs  his  passions 
and  directs  his  inclinations  to  the  one  end  of  achiev- 
ing real,  enduring  success. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    NEED    FOR    REAL    PATRIOTISM 

HE  WHO  is  nourished  by  the  state  owes  him- 
self to  the  state  —  that  is  the  creed  alike 
of  ancient  Sparta  and  of  modern  socialism. 
In  a  modified  form  it  should  be  the  social  religion  of 
every  citizen.  For,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
community,  what  frightful  debtors  we  all  are.  Look 
at  the  balance-sheet  of  most  of  us  when,  at  legal 
majority,  we  start  upon  our  active  careers.  On  the 
one  side  —  the  debit  side  —  stand  the  myriad  bene- 
fits of  civilization,  benefits  won  through  ages  of 
struggle  and  accumulation  by  millions  of  unknown 
men  and  women,  each  one  adding  something  to  the 
sum  of  civilization,  not  one  taking  anything  into  the 
world  beyond.  On  that  same  debit  side  should  be 
placed  the  nurture  and  the  teaching  which  from 
parents,  from  friends,  from  that  body  of  individuals 
called  the  state,  we  have,  up  to  the  time  when  we 
can  go  alone,  freely  received.  Again,  on  that  debit 
side  stand  the  opportunities  which  are  ours,  under 
law  and  order  and  personal  safety,  to  make  careers 

140 


NEED  FOR  REAL  PATRIOTISM  141 

for  ourselves,  to  earn  a  livelihood,  to  find  happiness, 
to  found  homes,  to  live  unharried  by  the  terrors  of 
the  wilderness,  the  horrors  of  invasion,  the  discom- 
forts and  dangers  of  a  mediaeval  or  a  pioneer  life. 

And  on  the  other  side  of  this  account,  the  credit 
side,  what  do  we  find?  What  part  of  this  capital 
which  the  advancing  civilization  of  centuries,  the 
republican  institutions  of  a  hundred  years,  the 
devotion  and  self-denial  of  relatives  and  friends,  have 
laid  up  for  him,  has  any  youth  just  entering  upon 
active  life  paid  in?  Not  one  penny.  Yet  before 
his  life  shall  have  been  ripened  and  ended,  unless  it 
has  been  lived  in  vain,  his  vast  debt  to  the  past  must 
have  been  more  than  repaid  and  in  its  place  must  be 
found  a  balance  of  achievement  to  be  added  to  that 
huge  capital  called  civilization,  which  was  his  to 
draw  upon  when  he  set  out  in  life  and  which,  greatly 
augmented  by  his  efforts  and  those  of  millions  of  his 
contemporaries,  will  be  no  less  freely  at  the  com- 
mand of  his  successors. 

It  is  untrue,  then,  that  the  world  owes  every  man 
a  living.  On  the  contrary,  the  world  pays  in  its 
capital  in  advance,  and  with  most  of  us  who  have 
arrived  at  mature  manhood  or  womanhood  it  is  we 
who  owe.  To  the  majority  has  been  given  without 
stint  a  fund  of  health,  of  physical  and  mental  power, 
of  civilized  environment,  of  unlimited  opportunity; 


i42  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

and,  whether  we  like  the  arrangement  or  not,  our 
lives,  if  they  are  to  amount  to  anything,  must  be 
devoted  to  the  repayment  of  this  social  obligation. 
A  fool  in  his  heart  may  say:  "I  will  live  for  myself 
alone,  make  money  for  myself,  spend  it  upon  me 
and  mine,  take  all  these  benefits  that  the  state  gives 
to  me,  that  civilization  has  provided  for  me,  and  do 
nothing  in  return;  then  indeed  shall  I  overreach 
Providence  and  get  much  for  nothing."  But  sooner 
or  later,  in  his  day,  in  that  of  his  children,  or  of  his 
children's  children,  the  accumulated  reckoning  will 
be  presented,  and  the  debt  will  be  exacted  to  its 
uttermost  farthing,  with  bitterness  and  shame  and 
suffering. 

Similarly,  a  nation  or  a  commonwealth  may  say: 
"We  have  had  great  and  splendid  ancestors  who 
built  us  a  country  and  a  government  out  of  the 
wilderness,  bought  freedom  for  us  with  their  sweat 
and  blood,  founded  great  industries  and  institutions 
of  government,  established  schools  and  colleges; 
these  ancestors  of  ours  have  made  it  possible  for  us, 
with  comparative  ease,  to  enrich  ourselves;  their 
inventions  have  opened  to  us  a  thousand  ways  of 
enjoyment  of  which  they  did  not  dream;  therefore 
will  we  give  ourselves  up  wholly  to  money  getting 
and  money  spending,  leaving  such  dry-as-dust 
questions  as  the  civil  service,  municipal  government, 


NEED  FOR  REAL  PATRIOTISM  143 

education,  to  those  cranks,  the  political  economists, 
and  those  low  rascals,  the  professional  politicians; 
therefore  will  we  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry,  turning 
over  the  state  and  the  country  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  the  bosses.  If  they  trouble  us  we  will  buy  them 
off;  if  they  shame  us,  we  will  go  to  Europe;  if  they 
bring  the  Republic  to  the  brink  of  ruin,  we  will  help 
to  set  up  a  dictator  who  will  relieve  us  of  all  further 
thought  about  these  tiresome  questions  of  self- 
government."  But  to  a  commonwealth  or  a  nation 
that  banks  upon  the  virtues  and  the  self-denial  of 
the  forefathers,  eating  up  its  inherited  capital  of 
manliness,  spending  without  investing,  reaping 
without  sowing,  comes  always  the  inevitable  result, 
the  result  which  has  come  over  and  over  again  to 
states  and  kingdoms  —  absolute  decay  and  that 
oblivion  which  mercifully  hides  all  dead  and  useless 
things. 

That  ours  may  not  be  such  a  fate  as  this  is  one 
of  the  main  reasons  for  the  compulsory  free  school. 
That  institution  exists,  ultimately,  for  the  promo- 
tion and  stimulation  of  active  patriotism.  There- 
fore we  see  the  flag  daily  floating  over  almost  every 
schoolhouse;  therefore  we  find  text-books  in  history 
exalting  the  national  prowess  and  belittling  all 
foreign  peoples;  therefore  we  find  the  pupils  sing- 
ing, in  a  shouting  fervor,  doggerel  verses  fitted  to 


144  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

ill  tunes;  therefore  in  many  other  ways  we  behold 
the  emotions  of  the  child-at-school  kept  at  a  fever- 
heat  —  all  in  the  sacred  name  of  patriotism.  But 
even  the  hurried  teacher,  steeped  in  this  loud  love  of 
country,  must  sometimes  ask  herself  if  the  result  is 
what  it  should  be,  if  this  patriotic  "revivalism"  is 
in  harmony  with  the  best  methods  in  education,  if 
it  would  be  attempted  to  develop  any  other  virtue  in 
the  perfervid  ways  through  which  custom  and  the 
temper  of  the  times  compel  her  artificially  to  stimu- 
late the  pupil's  love  of  country. 

To  such  self-questioning  the  answer  could  scarce- 
ly fail  to  be  that  while  knowledge  —  if  not  always 
practice  —  in  other  directions  in  education  has 
grown  far  out  of  emotionalism  and  crude  sym- 
bolism, in  this  most  important  direction,  this  direc- 
tion of  patriotism,  the  standards  are  still  those  of 
the  ancient  Fourth  of  July,  when  ardor  was  meas- 
ured wholly  in  terms  of  noise  and  extravagance  of 
boasting.  Like  the  fireworks  which  typified  that 
day,  the  fervor  of  the  child  too  oftert  is  exhausted 
in  a  blinding,  spectacular  outburst  of  flag-waving 
and  song-singing,  and  there  is  left  in  later  life  but 
an  empty  stick,  incapable  of  giving  or  sustaining 
any  really  loyal  glow. 

This  flag-raising  and  flag-waving,  this  singing  of 
songs,  these  exaltations  of  national  heroes,  will  be 


NEED  FOR  REAL  PATRIOTISM  145 

worse  than  futile,  will  be  frightfully  pernicious,  unless 
the  pupils  understand  their  real  significance,  unless 
they  clearly  see  that  these  are  but  symbols  of  and 
incentives  to  real  patriotism,  to  a  genuine  activity 
in  the  upbuilding  of  that  great  Country  into  which 
the  youth  is  fortunately  born.  Custom  will  for 
many  years  compel  the  teacher  to  cling  to  outward 
shows  of  patriotism;  but  unless  she  can  make  them 
mean  something  to  the  pupil,  these  so-called  loyal 
exercises  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  a  source  of  lasting 
damage  rather  than  of  help  to  future  citizenship. 
Hypocrisy,  unhappily,  is  very  common  in  the  world; 
but  nowhere  is  there  more  of  hypocrisy  than  in 
matters  involving  love  of  country.  There  is  much 
mental  confusion  regarding  all  abstract  ideas;  but 
in  nothing  is  there  more  confusion  of  mind  than  in 
regard  to  what  constitutes  real  patriotism.  Moral 
cowardice  is  the  chief  hindrance  to  most  men's 
spiritual  growth;  and  nowhere  is  moral  cowardice 
and  its  prototype,  moral  laziness,  more  conspicuous 
than  in  questions  of  real  loyalty.  Because  of  this 
hypocrisy,  this  haziness  of  ideas,  this  moral  weakness, 
there  are  always  present  in  a  republic  two  distinct 
kinds  of  patriotism,  both  claiming  that  sacred  name, 
but  as  opposed  to  one  another  as  are  light  and  dark- 
ness. Discrimination  between  them  is  fundamental 
to  sound  citizenship.  In  common  with  all  other 


i46  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

abstract  virtues,  patriotism  cannot  be  defined;  but 
like  a  complicated  mathematical  problem,  it  may  be 
reduced  to  its  lowest  terms,  in  some  such  way  as  this : 
The  United  States,  as  its  name  expresses,  is  a 
family  of  states  inhabited  by  persons  of  like  general 
ideas  and  bound  together  forever,  each  state  inde- 
pendent, and  yet  giving  up  certain  rights  that  it 
might  have  were  it  alone,  in  exchange  for  infinitely 
greater  rights  and  blessings  as  part  of  a  powerful 
nation.  And  what  is  a  state  but  a  family  of  cities, 
towns,  and  villages,  each  in  a  way  independent,  and 
yet  each  surrendering  some  of  its  independence  in 
return  for  the  far  greater  privileges  that  come  to  it 
as  a  member  of  the  state?  And  what  are  those 
cities,  towns,  and  villages  but  collections  of  families, 
each  living  its  family  life,  but  each  giving  up  some 
part  of  its  freedom  in  return  for  the  common  bene- 
fits received  at  the  hands  of  the  city  or  the  town? 
And  what,  finally,  'is  a  family  but  a  gathering  of 
souls,  each  living  its  own  life,  absolutely  required 
to  work  out  its  own  destiny,  but  each  getting  in- 
finite help  from  every  other  and  each  giving  up 
something  of  its  individuality  and  freedom  in  order 
to  secure  that  love,  that  mutual  helpfulness,  which 
make  true  home  life  above  all  things  blessed? 
Therefore  my  country  is  nothing  but  my  home  on  a 
vast  scale,  and  the  virtues  of  the  home,  making  al- 


NEED  FOR  REAL  PATRIOTISM  147 

lowance  for  difference  of  degree,  are  the  virtues  of 
patriotism.  What  is  right  to  do  for  the  family  is 
right  to  do  for  my  country;  what  is  wrong  to  do  in 
the  family  is  wrong  to  do  in  the  nation. 

This  simplifies  the  matter  very  greatly,  and 
helps  to  clear  up  many  confused  points  in  this 
much-discussed  and  much-abused  idea  of  patriotism. 
It  makes  clear,  too,  that  he  who  does  not  carry  the 
home  virtues  into  public  life,  or  who  tries  to  sub- 
stitute certain  other  qualities  that  in  private  life 
would  be  called  vices,  but  which  he  would  try  to 
persuade  us  become  in  public  life  virtues,  is  not  a 
true  patriot,  no  matter  how  loudly  he  may  bluster 
about  the  flag  and  the  honor  of  the  nation.  There 
is  no  national  honor  which  is  not  based  upon  the 
honor  of  the  individual;  there  are  no  patriotic 
virtues  which  are  not  also  private  virtues. 

Officials,  therefore,  who  under  pretence  of  serv- 
ing their  country  commit  acts  or  help  to  pass  laws 
contrary  to  private  right  and  justice,  or  repugnant 
to  the  plain  teachings  of  Christianity,  are  false 
patriots;  and  those  who  condone  them  or  who  sim- 
ply laugh  at  them,  as  well  as  those  who  applaud 
and  reelect  them,  are  parties  with  them  in  a  crime 
against  their  country.  There  cannot  be  two  stand- 
ards of  morality,  one  for  private  life  and  another  for 
public  life.  The  moral  law  cannot  be  twisted  so 


i48  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

that  what  is  wrong  for  the  individual  becomes  right 
for  the  elected  representative  of  a  number  of  in- 
dividuals, so  that  what  is  immoral  for  one  man  to  do 
becomes  not  only  moral  but  even  praiseworthy  when 
done  by  those  collections  of  men  known  as  cities, 
states,  and  nations.  Right  is  right  and  wrong  is 
wrong;  but  too  many  Americans,  blameless  in  their 
private  lives,  think  and  act  as  though  there  were 
different  standards  of  virtue  for  their  public  acts 
and  duties. 

These  may  be  called  the  chronic  false  patriots; 
against  them  the  true  patriots  have  to  carry  on  a 
continuous  and  oftentimes  disheartening  struggle. 
But  times  of  war  or  of  lesser  foreign  complications 
bring  forward,  in  addition,  a  great  number  of  what 
may  be  called  intermittent  false  patriots;  and  one 
of  the  most  dreadful  accompaniments  of  any  war  is 
the  swelling  of  the  ordinary  ranks  of  corruption, 
greed,  and  hypocrisy  by  this  new  and  clamorous 
body,  made  up  of  knaves  and  empty-headed  per- 
sons who,  under  ordinary  conditions,  are  kept,  by 
public  opinion,  quiescent  and  comparatively  harm- 
less. 

These  intermittent  false  patriots  always  require 
an  occasion  for  display  of  their  windy  loyalty;  there 
must  be  a  Fourth  of  July  or  an  exciting  election  or 
a  complication  with  some  foreign  power  before  they 


NEED  FOR  REAL  PATRIOTISM  149 

can  explode  their  patriotic  fervor.  The  true  pa- 
triot, however,  does  not  have  to  wait  for  these  ex- 
traordinary crises;  he  finds  opportunity  to  work 
for  his  country  every  day  in  the  week  and  every 
hour  in  the  day.  The  windy  patriot  is  always 
trying  to  stir  up  fights  and  complications  in  order 
that  he  may  have  a  chance  to  brag  and  bluster;  the 
true  patriot  is  always  endeavoring  to  keep  matters 
peaceful  and  orderly,  knowing  that  only  under  peace 
and  order  can  really  good  government  exist.  There 
is  no  phrase  more  true  than  the  old  Latin  one:  "In 
time  of  war  the  laws  are  silent."  During  the  crisis 
of  war  the  machinery  of  good  government  has  to 
stop,  and  through  that  stopping  great  national 
scandals  —  scandals  of  jobbery,  peculation,  and 
contract-swindling  —  are  able  to  arise  and  grow. 
It  is  during  such  crises  that  the  false  patriots  fasten 
upon  the  Government  and  fatten  themselves  upon 
the  nobility,  the  generosity,  the  self-sacrifice  of  that 
true  patriotism  whose  sacred  name  they  have  stolen 
as  a  cover  for  their  crimes. 

What,  now,  does  the  humdrum,  real  patriot,  need- 
ing no  spur  of  loud  occasions,  do  every  day  to  show 
his  patriotism?  Simply  his  whole  duty,  as  an  in- 
dividual and  as  a  citizen,  knowing  this  to  be  the 
sum  and  substance  of  true  love  of  country.  Such  a 
man  understands  the  first  duty  of  a  patriot  to  be 


i5o  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

the  leading  of  an  honest,  upright,  thrifty,  useful 
life.  He  knows  that  the  next,  and  perhaps  the 
greatest,  duty  of  a  patriot  is  toward  his  family:  as  a 
son,  to  honor  and  help  his  parents;  as  a  brother,  to 
live  in  closest  union  with  his  brothers  and  sisters;  as 
a  husband,  to  provide  for  the  comfort  and  happiness 
of  his  wife;  above  all,  as  a  father,  to  see  that  his 
children  are  properly  cared  for  and  rightly  educated, 
physically,  mentally,  and  morally.  A  great  number 
of  men,  however,  who  scrupulously  fulfil  these  first 
two  demands  are  yet  not  good  citizens  and  are, 
therefore,  not  true  patriots;  for  they  are  so  absorbed 
in  living  their  own  lives  and  are  so  devoted  to  their 
families  that  they  cannot  perceive  what  very  im- 
portant and  essential  duties  still  lie  beyond.  They 
forget,  that  is,  the  strictly  civic  duties  growing  out  of 
a  man's  relations  to  others  as  a  member  of  society. 

These  civic  duties,  while  wider  in  range,  are  dis- 
tinctly the  same  in  character  as  a  man's  obligations 
to  his  family.  It  behooves  him,  as  the  head  of  a 
house,  to  live  within  his  means,  to  pay  his  debts,  to 
be  scrupulously  honest  in  all  his  transactions.  In 
the  same  way  it  is  his  duty  as  a  citizen  to  see  that  the 
town  is  well  ordered,  is  economically  administered, 
that  all  its  officers  —  for  whose  acts  he  as  a  voter 
is  directly  responsible  —  are  scrupulously  honest, 
straightforward,  just.  It  is  a  man's  business,  as  a 


NEED  FOR  REAL  PATRIOTISM  151 

father,  to  make  certain  that  his  children  are  prop- 
erly reared,  educated,  and  kept  out  of  evil  in- 
fluences. Similarly  it  is  his  duty  as  a  citizen  to  see 
that  the  children  of  his  own  town  or  city  are  rightly 
educated;  that  due  provision  is  made  for  the  care  of 
the  poor,  aged,  and  sick;  that  the  town  is  kept  as  free 
as  possible  from  temptations  to  idleness  and  vice. 
And  through  a  long  list  of  duties  runs  this  paral- 
lelism, making  close  the  relationship  between  family 
life  and  civic  life  and  making  even  clearer  that  a 
man's  obligations  to  his  larger  household,  the  mu- 
nicipality, are  second  only  to  his  duties  to  that  im- 
mediate household  which  is  bounded  by  his  own 
four  walls. 

The  duties  of  a  citizen  toward  the  state  and  to- 
ward the  nation,  seemingly  less  immediate  and  press- 
ing, are  of  such  importance  that,  unless  properly 
and  fully  performed,  the  state  and  nation  must  soon 
go  to  pieces.  It  may  seem  a  perfunctory  act,  this 
voting  for  political  representatives;  but  is  it  a  light 
thing,  a  thing  to  be  neglected,  this  giving  to  men 
one's  power  of  attorney  as  a  citizen,  this  giving 
them  the  right  to  say  that  their  acts,  no  matter  how 
wrong,  are  your  acts?  Is  it  a  small  thing  to  choose 
men  who  shall  have  the  power  not  only  to  regulate 
your  life  in  a  thousand  ways,  but  even,  in  crises  like 
those  of  war,  to  demand  that  life  itself?  If  the 


I52  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

Republic  of  the  United  States  —  which  is  yet  but 
an  experiment  —  prove  in  the  end  a  failure,  it  will 
be  because  of  two  things:  the  indifference  of  a  great 
body  of  citizens  toward  the  quality  of  their  political 
representatives,  and  the  hidebound  partisanship 
of  other  great  numbers  of  citizens,  of  men  who  place 
the  success  of  party  above  the  welfare  of  their 
country,  men  who,  as  has  been  often  said,  would 
vote  for  Beelzebub  himself  were  he  the  regular 
nominee. 

This  parallelism  between  the  family,  the  town, 
the  state,  and  the  nation  is  no  fanciful  use  of  terms. 
The  life  of  the  family,  of  the  town,  of  the  state,  and 
of  the  nation  is  a  vast,  intertwined,  mutually  depend- 
ent life.  No  national  existence  is  sound  which  does 
not  rest  upon  a  pure  and  stable  family  life;  family 
life,  on  the  other  hand,  is  impossible  without  the 
protection  of  the  state  and  nation.  Every  one  of 
the  functions  which  each  of  these  social  bodies  per- 
form is  absolutely  essential  to  the  existence  of  the 
other  three.  What  hurts  one  injures  the  others; 
what  corrupts  one  corrupts  the  others;  what  exalts 
one  raises  all  the  others.  Therefore  the  false  pa- 
triot is  he  who  neglects  any  one  of  his  four  duties  or 
who  magnifies  any  one  of  them  at  the  expense  of 
the  others. 

The  man  who  is  wholly  absorbed  in  the  care  of 


NEED  FOR  REAL  PATRIOTISM  153 

his  family,  in  money  making,  in  the  pleasures  of  his 
little  circle,  may  be  a  model  husband  and  father, 
but  he  falls  far  short  of  being  a  true  patriot;  and 
were  such  men  in  a  majority,  there  would  be  no. 
country  wherein  his  pleasant,  selfish  little  existence 
could  find  protection.  The  man,  again,  who,  ab- 
sorbed in  the  petty  struggles  of  his  township,  never 
looks  up  from  the  narrow  valley  of  local  affairs  to 
the  great  hills  of  national  and  human  interests,  is  no 
true  patriot  and  would  be  almost  equally  useful  to 
the  world  were  he  living  in  some  isolated  hut-village 
of  the  African  jungle.  Again,  the  man  who,  keen 
in  the  game  of  party  politics,  takes  no  thought  for 
the  good  conduct  of  his  city  or  his  town,  giving  its 
control  into  the  hands  of  the  first  set  of  rogues  who 
choose  to  fasten  themselves  upon  it,  is  a  foolish  and 
mischievous  false  patriot,  for  he  is  striving  to  build 
the  superstructure  of  political  life  upon  a  rotten 
foundation.  Finally,  the  man  who,  filled  with  the 
splendid  idea  of  nationality,  drunk  with  the  swell- 
ing liquor  of  manifest  destiny,  believes  that  the 
nation  is  everything,  that  since  it  is  big  it  must  be 
made  bigger,  since  it  has  strength  it  must  show  that 
strength  as  prize  fighters  do,  is  no  true  patriot  unless 
he  can  show  that  the  foreign  complications  which 
must  be  the  outcome  of  aggressive  national  dis- 
play are  of  such  character  that  the  damage  which 


154          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

war  inevitably  brings  is  less  than  the  resulting  good. 
Our  Civil  War,  having  as  its  objects  the  real  union 
of  a  nation  that  had  been  but  nominally  welded  and 
the  doing  away  of  a  great  moral  wrong  sapping  the 
national  character,  was  amply  justified;  yet  we  have 
not  to  this  day  recovered  from  the  demoralization 
which  that  war  entailed.  Before  a  nation  plunges 
into  any  war,  be  it  ever  so  sacred  in  its  object,  be- 
fore the  people  of  that  nation  begin  madly  to  ap- 
plaud the  extravagance  and  glitter  and  excitement  of 
the  show,  let  them  count  up  a  few  of  the  evil  things 
which  follow  in  the  train  of  war:  the  breaking  up  of 
families,  with  all  the  suffering  and  sorrow  which 
that  brings;  the  death  or  demoralization  worse  than 
death  of  great  numbers  of  young  men;  the  arousing 
of  the  worst  and  most  savage  passions  —  hatred, 
revenge,  bloodthirstiness;  the  setting  aside  of  the 
ways  and  methods  of  good  government  under  stress 
of  the  sudden,  urgent  demands  of  national  peril; 
and,  not  least,  the  distortion  of  men's  minds  so  that 
they  come  to  believe  that  this  alone,  this  hurrah  and 
excitement,  this  blood  and  hate  and  vengeance,  is 
patriotism,  and  that  ordinary  faithfulness  to  the 
humdrum  duties  of  everyday  life  is  not  real  love  of 
country.  Dreadful  as  are  all  the  other  damages  of 
war,  there  is  perhaps  none  worse  than  this;  wicked 
as  are  most  of  the  excuses  for  this  relic  of  savagery, 


NEED  FOR  REAL  PATRIOTISM  155 

there  is  none  wickeder  than  the  statement  that  war 
is  needed  to  put  iron  in  our  blood,  to  save  us  from 
becoming  milksops.  The  courage  of  the  battlefield 
is  glorious,  but  it  is  paid  for  in  the  dearest  coin  that 
the  world  possesses.  And  there  is  an  equal  courage: 
the  doing  for  a  lifetime  of  a  man's  whole  duty  in 
every  possible  direction.  Moreover,  this  latter 
courage,  far  from  costing  the  country  anything, 
brings  in  a  wonderful  revenue  of  increasing  civiliza- 
tion, of  high  achievements  and  ever  higher  ideals, 
of,  in  the  broadest  sense,  Christianity.  We  Amer- 
icans do  indeed  need  iron  in  our  blood,  but  it  is  iron 
that  shall  make  us  do  our  dull,  plodding,  tiresome, 
patriotic  duties  day  after  day.  This  alone  is  the 
patriotism  to  be  taught  in  schools;  and  unless  these 
ideals  of  duty  toward  one's  country  are  made  vital 
in  the  school-life,  the  flag  salutes,  the  singing,  the 
national  self-glorification  will  result  in  a  nation  of 
swashbucklers,  not  one  of  patriots. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE   DEMAND    FOR  TRAINED    CITIZENS 

THE  old  philosophy,  curiously  jumbled  with 
necromancy  and  alchemy,  sought,  among 
others,  two  things:  a  philosopher's  stone 
to  transmute  base  metals;  a  master- word  to  solve 
the  riddle  of  the  universe.  Dearly  bought  experi- 
ence has  taught  the  futility  of  both  these  questions, 
though  it  is  still  easy  to  find  intelligent  investors 
in  sea-water  gold  and  well-educated  believers  in 
persons  claiming  supernatural  powers.  Men  who 
speak  and  write  are  still  tempted,  however,  to  seek 
a  master-word,  especially  in  the  domain  of  history. 
With  earlier  historians  that  master-word  was  King 
or  Dynasty;  later  it  was  Hero;  while  to-day  it  may 
be  said  to  be  The  Citizen.  And  when  one  thinks 
what  part  citizenship  has  played  in  history;  when 
one  remembers  the  significance  of  the  Roman  citi- 
zen, of  the  mediaeval  burgher,  of  the  freeman  of 
our  colonial  history,  of  le  citoyen  in  and  after  the 
French  Revolution,  and  how  intimate  has  been  the 

156 


DEMAND  FOR  TRAINED  CITIZENS         157 

connection  between  modern  progress  and  the  in- 
creasing rights  and  duties  of  the  citizen,  it  really 
seems  as  if  Citizenship  might  be  the  master-word 
of  human  history. 

However  this  may  be,  the  free  public  school 
could  not  for  a  moment  justify  itself  excepting  as 
a  training-ground  for  citizenship.  Hard  as  it  may 
be  to  do  so,  the  teacher  must  see  through  the  inertia, 
the  dulness,  the  semi-brutishness  of  her  worst 
pupils  the  vision  of  the  ideal  citizen  and  must  strive 
to  carry  even  them  to  what  is  plainly  an  impossible 
goal.  The  late  Doctor  Runkle  once  declared  that 
the  Russians  had  solved  the  problem  of  manual 
training  as  a  culture  study  by  putting  youth  not 
into  construction  but  into  instruction  shops.  This 
is  entirely  true  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  shop; 
but  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  boy,  a  good  school 
is  not  an  instruction,  it  is  a  construction  shop; 
and  the  article  to  be  constructed  out  of  the  materials, 
good  or  bad,  which  God  has  furnished  is  the  charac- 
ter, as  a  social  being,  of  each  and  every  pupil  in 
that  school.  The  mode  of  construction  signifies 
little;  the  kind  of  citizenship  constructed  means 
the  life  or  the  ultimate  death  of  the  community. 
Training  for  citizenship  is  as  inseparable  from 
public  education  as  morality  is  indivisible  from 
religion.  As  church  teaching  is  barren  unless  it 


158          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

have  regard  to  the  moral  life,  so  secular  instruction 
is  fruitless  unless  it  have  as  its  goal  the  life  of  the 
individual  citizen  and  of  that  human  aggregation 
which  we  call  society. 

Instruction  in  so-called  civics,  the  singing  of 
patriotic  songs,  and  the  saluting  of  the  flag  con- 
stitute, however,  only  a  small  fraction  of  that 
training  for  citizenship  which  it  is  the  school's  duty 
to  give.  For  there  are  three  aspects  of  citizenship, 
and  of  these  civics  and  patriotism  (in  the  narrower 
sense)  relate  only  to  the  least  important.  Those 
three  aspects,  named  in  the  order  of  their  increasing 
significance,  are  political  citizenship,  economic  citi- 
zenship, and  social  citizenship.  It  is,  of  course, 
material  that  a  young  man  should  recognize  and 
understand  his  duties  as  a  voter  and  a  politician; 
but  it  is  of  still  more  consequence  that  he  should 
appreciate  his  duty,  and  should  be  trained  to  per- 
form his  full  share,  as  a  producer,  as  a  doer  of  work 
that  is  useful  economically,  as  an  earner  of  that 
livelihood  which,  while  immediately  benefiting  him 
and  his  family,  promotes  at  the  same  time  the  com- 
mon weal.  And  it  is  most  important  of  all  that 
he  should  understand  and  should  be  fitly  prepared 
for  service  as  a  social  citizen:  for  his  duties,  that 
is,  as  a  son,  a  brother,  a  husband,  a  father,  a  neigh- 
bor, and  a  friend. 


DEMAND  FOR  TRAINED  CITIZENS         159 

The  school,  of  course,  cannot  directly  teach  a 
boy  how  to  be  a  citizen  any  more  than  it  can  teach 
him  to  be  an  electrician  or  a  bank  clerk;  it  cannot 
prepare  him  for  the  responsibilities  of  life  any  far- 
ther than  the  college  can  fit  its  students  to  be  bank 
presidents  or  to  be  organizers  of  trusts  that  will 
(and  do)  hold  water.  In  all  such  things  experience 
must  be  the  real  and  final  teacher;  but  experience 
can  do  no  teaching,  or  she  can  do  it  only  at  enormous 
and  unnecessary  cost,  unless  the  right  traits,  habits, 
qualities,  and  states  of  mind  are  there  in  the  youth 
for  experience  to  work  with  and  upon;  unless  the 
man  who  is  to  learn  through  experience  is  possessed 
of  certain  fundamental  and  essential  tools. 

In  the  hands  of  a  true  teacher,  training  for  polit- 
ical citizenship  is  comparatively  simple.  To  teach 
civics  is  easy,  because  it  connects  so  readily  with 
the  boy's  life  and  surroundings;  to  inspire  patriotism 
is  not  difficult,  because  one  can  appeal  to  the  emo- 
tions, can  enlist  music  and  poetry,  can  make  use  of 
the  chivalric,  hero-worshipping  side  of  the  youth, 
can  illustrate  with  splendid  concrete  instances.  It 
should  not  be  impossible  for  any  and  every  school 
to  give,  by  the  end  of  the  grammar-school  course, 
or  early  in  the  high-school  period,  a  good  knowl- 
edge of  the  machinery  of  government,  of  the  imme- 
diate duties  of  a  voter,  of  the  history  of  the  United 


160  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

States,  of  the  principles  at  the  basis  of  its  develop- 
ment, together  with  that  general  feeling  of  loyal 
aspiration  and  devotion  which  is  meant  by  pa- 
triotism. 

Preparation  for  economic  and  social  citizenship, 
however,  is  a  far  more  serious  task,  because  of  the 
immense  range  of  industrial  and  social  life  and  of 
the  intangibility  of  the  qualities  to  be  instilled.  As 
Boston  is  shrewdly  said  to  be  not  so  much  a  place 
as  a  state  of  mind,  so  to  educate  for  economic  and 
social  citizenship  by  teaching  specific  trades  and 
occupations,  or  to  prepare  for  social  citizenship  by 
giving  lectures  on  parental  duty,  would  be  as  idle 
as  it  would  be  wrong.  What  has  to  be  done  is, 
first,  to  determine  those  qualities  which  lie  at  the 
foundation  of  sound  economic  and  social  citizenship, 
and  then  to  develop  those  qualities  in  the  high- 
est degree  possible  to  each  individual  child.  The 
important  thing  is  to  have  one's  vision  fixed,  not 
on  what  one  is  teaching,  but  on  what  one  is  teaching 
for.  The  present  squirming  boy  is  such  a  large  and 
irritating  fact  that  he  is  apt  to  eclipse  the  vision 
of  him  as,  twenty  years  hence,  a  useful  man;  the 
arithmetic  and  spelling  lessons  look  so  large  as  often 
to  shut  out  the  splendid  ends  to  which  they  are  the 
very  commonplace  and  tiresome  means. 

What,  then,  is  the  ideal  citizen,  the  vision  of  whom 


DEMAND  FOR  TRAINED  CITIZENS         161 

no  teacher  must  for  a  moment  lose?  It  is  he  who 
is  healthy  in  body  and  in  mind,  who  takes  life 
seriously  but  joyously,  who  does  his  duty  not  as  a 
penance  but  as  a  privilege.  It  is  he  who  does  not 
shirk  political  activity,  who  votes  from  knowledge, 
not  from  prejudice;  who  does  not  seek  office  but  who, 
if  the  office  seek  him,  serves  without  fear  or  favor. 
It  is  he  who  loves  his  country  so  well  that,  not  wait- 
ing bravely  to  die  for  her,  he  is  willing  nobly  to  live 
for  her.  It  is  he  who,  fearing  no  kind  or  amount  of 
work,  labors  not  by  compulsion  but  by  choice.  It 
is  he  who,  without  bemoaning  his  condition,  seeks 
always  to  improve  it,  ambitious  to  make  every 
moment  and  every  faculty  tell.  It  is  he  whose 
morals  are  as  clean  as  his  body,  whose  mind  and  eye 
alike  are  clear,  who  respects  himself  too  much  to 
descend  to  mean  actions  and  low  thoughts.  It 
is  he  whose  brain  is  active,  whose  hands  are  skilled, 
who  can  fix  the  mind  absolutely  on  what  he  is 
doing  and  can  hold  mind  and  hand  down  to  the 
present  task  till  it  be  thoroughly  done.  It  is  he 
who,  meeting  an  obstacle,  does  not  sit  down  de- 
spairingly before  it,  but  exerts  every  faculty  to  find 
a  way  over  or  under  or  around  that  obstacle.  It  is 
he  who  lives  in  real  democratic  relations  with  his 
kind,  having  due  regard  for  their  rights,  yet  careful 
of  his  own,  having  good  manners  to  attract  men, 


162  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

tact  to  lead  men,  integrity  to  hold  men,  and  power 
to  command  men.  It  is  he  who  in  due  time  marries, 
devoting  himself  to  his  family  but  not  allowing  home 
life  to  absorb  all  his  interests.  It  is  he,  finally, 
who,  in  seeking  a  good  living,  seeks  also,  and  more 
eagerly,  the  good  and  useful  life. 

Such  a  man  is  like  a  perfectly  constructed  machine 
of  which  the  mind  and  soul  are  in  complete,  intel- 
ligent command;  a  beneficent  machine,  moreover, 
working  at  one  and  the  same  time  for  its  own  good, 
its  neighbor's  good,  and  the  bettering  of  all  man- 
kind. Citizenship  like  this  means  both  personal 
power  and  a  strong  sense  of  human  kinship.  Power 
to  do  and  power  to  work  together  should  be,  there- 
fore, the  broad  aims  of  public-school  endeavor  and 
of  community  endeavor.  The  school  and  the  town 
must  do  their  utmost  to  arouse  and  strengthen 
in  every  boy  and  girl  the  ability  to  play  the  largest 
part  possible  in  the  life  of  the  community. 

To  do  this  the  school  must  furnish  the  child  with 
certain  fundamental  arts  essential  to  the  social  life. 
The  boy  or  girl  must  be  taught,  that  is,  to  read,  to 
write,  to  spell,  to  cipher;  he  must  be  made  ac- 
quainted with  the  configuration,  the  products,  the 
nations  of  the  earth,  and  must  be  given  some 
general  knowledge  of  the  history  of  those  nations. 
Moreover,  he  must  be  trained  in  the  customs  of 


163 

society  (that  is,  in  good  manners)  and  in  the  arts 
necessary  to  useful  intercourse  with  men.  Further- 
more, these  bodies  of  growing  youth  met  together 
in  the  schoolroom  must  be  accustomed  to  acting 
in  concert,  led  to  feel  their  dependence  upon  one 
another,  made  to  see  the  great  and  multiply- 
ing interrelations  of  all  human  society.  Even 
more  than  this,  however,  the  school  ought,  so 
far  as  it  can,  to  train,  foster,  and  direct  the 
moral,  mental,  and  physical  powers  of  each 
individual  child  toward  his  highest  individual 
development. 

How  is  this  to  be  done?  First,  and  most  impor- 
tant, by  the  creation  of  a  schoolroom  atmosphere, 
of  a  town  atmosphere,  of  a  home  atmosphere  charged 
with  high  purpose,  with  unflinching  morality,  with 
the  desire  for  mutual  helpfulness,  with  lofty  personal 
and  social  ideals.  To  create  such  an  atmosphere 
in  the  school  the  teacher  will  conduct  all  his  exer- 
cises not  because  they  are  set  down  in  a  printed 
curriculum,  but  because  they  are  stepping-stones 
to  a  broad  and  useful  life.  A  whimsical  school 
board  can  prescribe  no  course  of  study  so  foolish 
that  a  teacher  who  sees  clearly  the  purpose  of  his 
teaching  may  not  use  this  unscientific  curriculum 
in  a  scientific  way.  Were  this  not  so,  committee- 
made  courses  of  study,  machine-made  text-books, 


164  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

and  intemperate  temperance  propaganda  would  long 
ago  have  swamped  the  schools. 

Here,  then,  on  the  one  hand,  we  have  the  con- 
ventional school  topics,  well  or  ill  arranged,  and  with 
prescribed  text-books  good,  or  mostly  bad.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  have  the  twenty-five  pupils — 
and  I  say  twenty-five  because  a  teacher  with  more 
than  that  number  is  a  policeman,  not  an  educator. 
Between  them  stands  the  schoolmaster  appointed 
to  carry  the  pupils  by  means  of  the  course  of  study 
as  far  as  may  be  toward  good  citizenship.  It  is 
not  for  any  one  except  that  teacher  to  say  exactly 
how  this  is  to  be  done.  But  it  is  for  all  educated 
teachers,  it  is  for  all  thoughtful  citizens  outside  the 
teaching  profession,  to  say  and  to  insist  that  to 
train  citizens  is  what  that  teacher  is  in  that  school- 
room for.  If  he  (or  she),  even  with  the  poorest 
human  material  to  work  upon,  cannot  do  this,  if 
he  cannot,  that  is,  carry  his  pupils  during  the  year 
a  little  farther  on  toward  the  ideal  of  true  citizenship, 
then  he  is  no  fit  teacher,  and  neither  normal  school 
diploma  nor  college  degree  can  persuade  us  that 
he  is. 

Just  at  present  the  public  is  more  ready  to  de- 
mand and  to  encourage  fine  buildings  than  fine 
teachers.  The  lofty  schoolhouses  make  a  civic 
show;  the  high-aiming  teachers  do  not.  This  is 


DEMAND  FOR  TRAINED  CITIZENS        165 

a  tendency  to  be  steadily  fought  against,  for  it 
leads  directly  toward  that  materialism  which  it 
should  be  the  business  of  education  to  counteract. 
Well  housed,  healthfully  housed,  the  schools  should 
of  course  be;  but  every  dollar  spent  on  needless 
elaboration  is  money  filched  from  the  real  work  of 
education.  No  city  or  town  has  any  business  to 
put  up  elaborate  school  buildings  so  long  as  its 
teaching  staff  is  undermanned,  underpaid,  or  under- 
educated.  We  must  beware,  also,  of  too  much 
pedagogical  furniture  in  those  already  overcrowded 
schoolrooms.  Elaborate  organization  is  alluring; 
experimentation  is  dangerously  easy.  But  they 
tempt  the  teacher,  not  seldom,  into  a  fatal  depend- 
ence upon  formalism,  into  a  facile  mechanizing 
of  education,  into  unwise  conclusions  based  upon  un- 
certain facts. 

The  true  teacher,  or,  rather,  a  succession  of  fit 
teachers,  with  vision  fixed  on  the  ideal  citizen,  will 
make  the  conventional  subjects  of  the  elementary 
school  serve  a  double  purpose.  Considering  the 
topics  as  ends  in  themselves,  those  successive  good 
teachers  will  make  the  pupil  into  a  good  reader, 
able  to  penetrate  and  visualize  the  meaning  when 
he  reads  to  himself,  able  to  express  that  meaning 
by  the  modulations  of  his  voice  when  he  reads  aloud. 
They  will  make  him  a  good  speller,  sure  of  the  pre- 


166  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

cedence  of  wayward  letters;  a  good  writer,  com- 
petent to  make  a  clear  and  handsome  page;  a 
ready  cipherer,  able  to  differentiate  addition  from 
multiplication  and  confident  of  the  final  results 
of  his  neatly  arranged  columns.  And  this  the  good 
teacher  will  do  because  he  appreciates  the  vast 
importance  of  these  little  arts  in  economic  and  in 
social  life.  But,  farther  than  this,  and  using  these 
same  arts  as  means,  the  genuine  educator  will 
employ  them  to  develop  and  perfect  that  clearness 
of  thinking,  that  concentration  of  mind,  that  ac- 
curacy of  statement,  that  faithfulness  in  the  doing 
of  little  things,  that  readiness  of  resource,  which 
are  the  foundation  and  the  capstone  of  success. 

As  to  the  other  usual  studies  of  the  common 
school,  this  teacher  will  employ  them,  first,  to 
promote  those  qualities  already  named,  and,  sec- 
ondly, to  build  up  other  virtues  essential  to  useful 
citizenship.  Geography  will  be  availed  of,  for 
example,  to  give  breadth  of  view,  tolerance  of 
others'  ideas,  a  sense  of  the  mutual  dependence  of 
mankind;  history  will  be  used  to  build  up  courage, 
civic  devotion,  belief  in  the  ultimate  triumph  of 
the  right;  manual  training  will  be  employed  to 
coordinate  the  hand  and  head,  to  inspire  respect 
for  the  labor  of  the  hands;  together  with  sci- 
ence study,  shop-work  will  be  used  to  develop  keen 


DEMAND  FOR  TRAINED  CITIZENS         167 

common  sense,  readiness  of  resource,  adaptability 
to  new  conditions;  music  and  drawing  will  be 
availed  of  to  train  the  eye  and  the  ear,  and  to 
cultivate  aesthetic  appreciation.  And,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  the  good  teacher  will  instil  the 
principles  of  healthful  living,  of  physical  care,  of 
temperance  in  the  true  meaning,  not  in  the  distorted 
text-book  sense,  of  that  much  abused  word. 

Those  who  have  had  to  do  with  commercial  life 
appreciate  what  enormous  and  unnecessary  waste, 
what  needless  friction  and  sticking  of  the  economic 
machinery,  come  from  preventable  sickness,  and 
still  more  from  inefficiency  due  to  bad  diet,  un- 
sanitary conditions,  and  ignorance  of  the  simplest 
principles  of  health;  they  know  under  what  dis- 
advantages all  business  and  manufacturing  are 
carried  on  because  the  workmen,  the  clerks,  and, 
indeed,  the  partners  and  proprietors  are  wanting 
in  power  to  use  their  minds,  are  clumsy  with  their 
hands,  or,  if  not  clumsy  manually,  seem  to  have  no 
pathway  between  mind  and  hand.  They  will  have 
seen  many  a  man  fail  of  success  and  of  that  comfort 
which  should  have  been  his  because  he  had  not 
been  taught  to  reason,  to  concentrate  his  thoughts, 
to  persevere;  because  he  lacked  tact,  breadth  of 
view,  adaptability,  "gumption."  We  spare  no 
pains  to  train  the  blind,  the  deaf,  the  dumb;  yet 


168  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

we  send  out  from  our  schools  thousands  and  tens 
of  thousands  who,  having  eyes,  see  not,  having  ears, 
hear  not,  having  tongues,  are  powerless  to  speak 
to  their  fellowmen  except  in  a  meaningless  tittle- 
tattle  as  futile  as  the  chattering  of  apes.  To  reduce 
the  number  of  these  mental  and  moral  defectives 
is  one  of  the  most  important  functions  of  the  school. 

If  emphasis  seems  to  have  been  laid  upon  the 
economic  rather  than  upon  the  social  side  of  citizen- 
ship, it  is  because  that  in  cultivating  economic  and 
civic  virtues  the  moral  virtues  will  be  at  the  same 
time,  and  perhaps  even  more  fully,  stimulated.  In 
getting  command  of  his  mind  and  body,  the  youth 
will  become  sovereign  also  of  his  will;  and  moral 
living  is  simply  the  reward  of  a  disciplined  and 
educated  will. 

Nevertheless,  in  some  way,  greater  emphasis 
must  be  laid,  in  the  school,  upon  morals;  deliberate 
effort  must  be  made  to  prepare  boys  and  girls  for 
that  parental  duty  and  responsibility  which,  with 
most  of  them,  is  to  be  the  really  important  business 
of  their  uneventful  lives.  Moral  discipline  was  the 
sole  original  purpose  of  Christian  education.  The 
advance  —  and  it  is  immense  —  which  has  come 
from  taking  religious  teaching  out  of  the  common 
schools  has  not  been  all  gain.  For,  in  shunning 
sectarianism,  we  have  too  often  lost  sight  of  the 


DEMAND  FOR  TRAINED  CITIZENS         169 

fact  that  the  object  of  all  education  should  be  the 
moral  life.  Somehow,  without  precipitating  the 
child  into  the  whirlpool  of  religious  controversy, 
it  must  be  made  evident  to  him  that  moral  living 
is  the  supreme  end  of  life,  that  what  he  learns,  what 
he  does,  what  he  accomplishes  is  to  the  sole  purpose 
of  upbuilding  society,  of  bettering  the  world,  of 
attaining  genuine  salvation.  This  may  appear  to 
be  an  impossible  goal,  this  work  may  seem  to  be 
the  church's,  not  the  school's,  it  may  savor  of  the 
visionary  and  Utopian,  but  it  should  be,  I  am  con- 
vinced, the  aspiration  of  all  high-minded  teachers; 
it  must  sooner  or  later  be  the  ultimate  purpose  of 
all  public  education  if  this  nation  is  not  to  disappear, 
as  so  many  earlier  ones  have  been  swallowed  up, 
in  rank  materialism.  To  teach  boys  and  girls  and 
to  ignore  that  in  them  which  alone  is  permanent, 
is  indeed  to  try  to  make  bricks  without  straw,  is 
indeed  to  attempt  to  train  for  citizenship  without 
knowledge  of  what  citizenship  means. 

This,  then,  is  the  problem  which  every  one, 
whether  a  professor  in  a  university,  a  teacher  in  the 
schools,  or  simply  a  plain  citizen,  has  always  before 
him  for  solution.  Some  boys  and  girls  may  be 
carried  very  far,  some  can  be  dragged  only  a  dis- 
couragingly  short  way,  along  the  weary  road  to 
ideal  citizenship.  But  there  is  no  normal  child  born 


i;o          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

who  may  not  be  taken  some  distance  along  the  true 
way,  provided,  of  course,  that  the  school,  the  city, 
and  the  home  conditions  permit  of  giving  him  a 
genuine  education.  These  conditions  essential  to 
real  education  are,  broadly  speaking:  proper,  health- 
ful, moral  surroundings,  freedom  from  political  cor- 
ruption, small  classes  in  the  schools,  well-educated 
and  enthusiastic  teachers,  and  genuine  interest  and 
support  from  that  public  to  which  the  public  schools 
belong. 

It  is  an  impressive  allegory  —  that  of  the  army 
of  the  children,  that  mighty  army  of  boys  and  girls 
knocking  at  the  gates  of  our  city,  seeking  to  possess 
what  we  have,  striving  to  rule  that  kingdom  which 
is  now  ours.  That  irresistible  army  of  the  children 
—  for,  whether  we  oppose  them  or  whether  we  wel- 
come them,  in  thirty  years,  in  forty  years,  in  fifty 
years,  they  will  have  conquered  us,  they  will  have 
taken  the  places  of  us  who  lie  dead  upon  the  battle- 
field. That  army  of  the  children,  however,  can 
make  the  city  which  was  once  ours  more  beautiful, 
more  influential,  more  worth  while  to  live  in;  or, 
on  the  other  hand,  can  give  itself  up  to  rioting,  to 
pillage,  to  the  physical  and  moral  destruction  of 
this  city,  no  longer  ours,  but  irrevocably  theirs. 
Whether  they  shall  build  up  or  whether  they  shall 
pull  down  it  is  for  us  to  determine;  for  in  our 


DEMAND  FOR  TRAINED  CITIZENS        171 

hands  lies  the  training  of  that  army  for  its  work, 
To-day  we  are,  to-morrow  they  will  be,  the  citizens; 
and  whether  or  not  they  are  to  be  true  and  efficient 
citizens  rests  entirely  with  us.  It  is  our  business 
to  see  to  it,  therefore,  that  the  atmosphere  and  the 
educative  influences  of  this  vast  present-day  city 
of  civilization  are  the  very  best,  the  very  most 
efficient,  the  very  most  uplifting  to  boys  and  girls 
that  it  is  possible  for  them  to  be. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE    DEMAND    FOR    DISCIPLINE 

IN  THAT  fountain  of  truth,  of  philosophy,  of 
inspiration,  as  well  as  of  pure  English,  for  lack 
of  acquaintance  with  which  modern  children 
are  suffering  irreparable  damage:  in  the  King  James 
version  of  the  Bible,  it  is  asserted  that  "He  that 
spareth  his  rod  hateth  his  son."  This  sentiment, 
variously  phrased  and  modified,  appears  many 
times  in  the  Scriptures  and,  in  the  popular  form  of 
"Spare  the  rod  and  spoil  the  child,"  has  had  incal- 
culable effect  upon  methods  of  education.  How 
many  millions  of  little  backs  have  smarted,  how 
many  millions  of  little  minds  have  been  tormented 
by  the  too  literal  application  of  this,  in  its  right  inter- 
pretation, most  excellent  text.  A  careful  consid- 
eration of  the  various  phases  of  what  is  commonly 
called  modern  education  will  show  that  almost  every 
step  in  it,  almost  every  argument  used  in  its  behalf, 
has  had  foundation  in  a  rebellion  against  this  old 
biblical  assertion;  and  those  who  have  doubts  con- 
cerning these  elaborate  new  systems  found  them 

172 


DEMAND  FOR  DISCIPLINE  173 

upon  a  fear  lest  the  revolt  against  the  rod  of  dis- 
cipline may  be  carried  too  far  and  that,  at  the  very 
hands  of  those  who  would  save  him  from  the  wrongs 
of  the  old  education,  the  child  may  be  spoiled  by 
equal  errors  and  follies  in  the  new. 

Physical  fibre,  mental  fibre,  moral  fibre  are  what 
education  exists  to  develop  in  the  child;  and  this 
fibre  can  be  built  up,  toughened,  and  made  good  for 
something  only  by  a  judicious,  daily  application  of 
the  rod.  Not,  of  course,  by  the  actual  birch  of  the 
proverbial  pedagogue,  but  by  the  subtle,  invisible, 
though  none  the  less  efficacious,  rod  of  hard  work, 
real,  persistent  effort,  and  steady  discipline. 

The  old  education,  with  its  sound  thrashings  and 
unsound  psychology,  with  its  Latin  grammar  and 
more  Latin  grammar  and  still  more  Latin  grammar, 
produced  a  hard-headed,  hard-fisted,  hard-hearted 
race,  but  it  was,  in  the  main,  a  race  sound  physically, 
mentally,  and  morally.  Many  of  the  new  methods, 
on  the  other  hand,  methods  of  gentle  cooing  toward 
the  child's  inclinations,  of  timidly  placing  a  chair  for 
him  before  a  disordered  banquet  of  heterogeneous 
studies,  may  produce  ladylike  persons,  but  they  will 
not  produce  men.  And  when  these  modern  methods 
go  so  far  as  to  compel  the  teacher  to  divide  this  intel- 
lectual cake  and  pudding  into  convenient  morsels 
and  to  spoon-feed  them  to  the  child,  partly  in  obcdi- 


174          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

ence  to  his  schoolboy  cravings,  partly  in  conformity 
to  a  pedagogical  diet-list  dictated  by  the  latest  out- 
givings of  physiological  psychology,  then  the  result 
is  sure  to  be  mental  and  moral  dyspepsia  in  a  race 
of  milksops. 

We  have  learned  much  —  are  learning  more  every 
day  —  about  questions  of  educational  diet,  we  are 
devising  ever  better  methods  of  cooking  and  serving 
that  diet  in  the  schools ;  but  in  our  zeal  we  are  for- 
getting that,  above  all  else,  a  child  must  be  taught 
to  feed  himself,  and  must  be  fed  upon  material 
of  such  robust  quality  that  his  mental  teeth  will 
be  compelled  to  masticate,  that  his  apperceptive 
stomach  will  have  to  digest,  that  his  whole  moral 
system  will  be  obliged  to  keep  itself  steadily  and 
healthily  at  work. 

It  is  needless  to  recount  the  horrors  of  the  old 
regime,  when  the  rod,  not  a  mere  symbol,  was  an 
ever-present  fact  of  education.  So  far  as  relates  to 
teaching,  those  were  slave  days  and  the  schoolmaster 
was  a  slave-driver,  scantily  paid  to  whip  children 
into  the  doing  of  hard  and  hateful  tasks.  Neither 
needs  one  to  expatiate  upon  the  blessings  of  the 
present  day,  when  the  child,  all  unconscious  that  he 
is  accomplishing  anything  disagreeable,  is  smilingly 
led,  by  devious  and  often  extraordinary  ways,  into 
the  doing  of  tasks  which  really  must  be  done,  but 


DEMAND  FOR  DISCIPLINE  175 

which  the  pupil  must  on  no  account  know  that  he 
is  doing  lest  he  take  offence  at  the  very  thought  of 
having  done  them.  But  in  this  change  from  driving 
to  coaxing  is  there  not  being  created  a  new  slave, 
the  teacher,  and  a  new  slave-driver,  the  pampered 
child?  And  in  freeing  the  child  from  the  visible 
ills  of  hard,  disagreeable  tasks  is  he  not  being  de- 
livered into  the  hands  of  that  worst  enemy  of  man- 
kind, an  undisciplined  will?  Moreover,  how  are 
these  modern  slave-drivers,  the  children,  when  they 
in  turn  shall  become  teachers,  to  be  brought  to 
bend  their  backs  in  pedagogical  slavery?  And  how, 
when  the  time  comes  for  them  to  mold  the  lives  of 
the  next  generation,  are  they  to  do  this  if  they  are 
themselves  ignorant  as  to  the  ruling  of  their  own 
lives  ? 

It  is  the  tritest  of  sayings  that  there  is  no  royal 
road  to  learning;  but  too  many  of  the  modern  school 
methods  ignore  this  truism,  or,  rather,  seem  to  be- 
lieve that  the  road  can  be  travelled  vicariously  by 
the  teacher,  who,  working  to  the  uttermost  edge  of 
her  nerves,  must  perform  prodigious  intellectual 
journeys  in  order  to  spare  a  few  steps  of  wholesome 
drudgery  to  the  unwisely  cosseted  pupil. 

Observation  of  the  child  himself  ought  to  explode 
the  notion  that  drudgery  and  steady  application, 
provided  they  be  wisely  supervised,  are  bad  for  him. 


176  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

Nobody  else  in  the  world  works  harder  than  a 
baby  and  none  other  accomplishes  more  in  the  same 
period  of  time.  The  infant,  it  is  true,  has  the 
several  great  advantages  that  his  relatives  do  not 
appreciate  how  hard  he  is  laboring,  that  he  would 
not  understand  them  even  were  they  to  commiserate 
him,  and  that  he  is  compelled  by  nature  to  do  one 
thing  —  at  most,  a  very  few  things  —  at  a  time, 
devoting  himself  heart  and  soul  to  just  those  tasks, 
without  any  distractions  from  outside.  But,  under 
these  admirable  educational  conditions,  the  baby 
tutors  himself  thoroughly  and  excellently  up  to  that 
point  where  adult  outsiders  begin  to  interfere,  and 
to  force  upon  him  methods,  wise  and  unwise,  of 
formal  education. 

Unless  one  has  watched  a  baby  from  day  to  day, 
he  would  scarcely  believe  how  many  times  the  child 
tries  to  coordinate  his  muscles,  to  use  his  hands 
rightly,  to  balance  himself,  before  he  arrives  at  any 
sort  of  automatic  action.  It  is  astonishing  how  fre- 
quently he  practises  each  word,  often  whispering  it 
over  and  over  to  himself,  before  he  acquires  that 
small  vocabulary  which  makes  all  later  learning  pos- 
sible. It  is  extraordinary  how  much  power  of  con- 
centration and  observation  is  necessary  to  accomplish 
the  stupendous  task  of  learning  to  control  his  body 
and  to  use  its  senses.  Doubtless  the  process  is 


DEMAND  FOR  DISCIPLINE  177 

fun  to  the  child  because  of  the  new  sensations  and 
the  stimulation  of  his  daily  progress.  Nevertheless, 
in  the  first  three  or  four  years  of  his  life  the  infant 
achieves  marvels,  and  he  accomplishes  these  won- 
ders by  concentration,  by  untiring  repetition,  by 
complete  absorption  in  what  he  is  doing,  by  prodig- 
ious exercise  of  memory,  by  great  skill  in  observation, 
and  by  quite  mature  use  of  induction  and  deduction. 

All  these  powers  are  essential  to  the  thorough 
learning  of  anything;  yet  some  of  these  faculties,  so 
fostered  by  the  old  education,  are  shamefully  neg- 
lected by  the  new.  Habit  through  repetition,  for 
example,  strengthening  of  the  memory,  power  of  con- 
centration, fearlessness  of  disagreeable  work,  were 
most  wisely  cultivated  by  the  ancient  processes; 
and  the  new  education  will  make  a  fatal  mistake  if, 
in  its  zeal  to  develop  the  individuality  of  the  child, 
his  powers  of  observation,  of  induction,  of  deduction, 
it  overlooks  the  equally  important  educational 
factors  of  concentration,  of  memorizing,  of  habit, 
of  doing  a  thing  simply  for  the  exercise  of  doing  it: 
if  it  overlooks,  in  short,  the  fact  that  drudgery  is 
one  of  the  greatest  of  moral  and  educational  forces. 

But  this  hard-working  baby,  even  in  the  grimmest 
Puritan  days,  was  surrounded  by  an  atmosphere  of 
mother-love  and  helpfulness  —  at  the  worst,  by  a 
wintry  sunshine  extracted  from  the  doctrine  of 


178          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

infant  damnation  by  the  alchemy  of  a  baby's  smile. 
As  soon,  however,  as  the  Puritan  child  could  be 
made  conscious  of  original  sin,  the  rod  began  its 
work,  and  thereafter  parent  and  pedagogue  vied 
with  one  another  in  birching  sin  out  and  the  Latin 
grammar  in.  The  long,  hard  lesson  which,  since  those 
days,  education  itself  has  had  to  learn  is  that  sym- 
pathy, that  encouragement,  that  interest  in  him  as 
an  individual  are  as  essential  to  the  child  and  youth 
as  to  the  baby;  and,  as  the  best  result  of  this  lesson, 
there  has  been  substituted,  in  teaching,  the  power  of 
helpfulness  for  the  force  of  compulsion. 

In  banishing  from  the  schools,  however,  almost 
every  kind  of  hardship  and  compulsion,  there  is 
danger  of  overlooking  the  good  principles  which  lay 
behind  the  bad  practices  of  whipping.  It  is,  of 
course,  very  wrong  to  chastise  a  child  for  breaking 
petty  rules  devised  by  our  unwisdom;  but  it  is 
equally  wrong  not  to  give  his  conscience  such  a 
thorough  and  hard  discipline  that  it  will  whip  him 
soundly  every  time  that  he  disobeys  wise  laws 
which  he  is  capable  of  understanding.  It  is  cruel 
and  inhuman  to  force  a  pupil  to  the  doing  of  mo- 
notonous tasks  just  for  the  sake  of  keeping  him  at 
work;  but  it  is  equally  cruel  never  to  teach  him  how 
to  do  a  hard  task  and  how  to  stick  to  it  against  his 
strongest  inclinations.  One  is  now  considered  to 


DEMAND  FOR  DISCIPLINE  179 

be  frightfully  behind  the  times  if  he  attempts  to 
teach  a  child  the  multiplication  table  and  similar 
things  seemingly  fundamental  to  ordinary  knowl- 
edge; but  is  one  quite  right  in  sparing  him  these 
disagreeable  things  now  if,  in  doing  so,  one  is  laying 
up  for  him  a  store  of  trouble  in  the  future  through 
his  ignorance  of  these  memorized  facts?  And  is  it 
quite  unpedagogical  to  believe  that  since  the  baby, 
injorder  to  train  himself,  will  make  the  same  monot- 
onous movement  or  repeat  the  same  tiresome  word 
day  after  day,  without  seeming  fatigue,  therefore 
early  childhood,  even  up  to  the  tenth  or  twelfth  year, 
is  the  time  for  that  drudgery  in  memorizing  and  in 
systematizing  which,  sooner  or  later,  ought  to  be 
gone  through  with?  And  while  none  would  dare 
to  ask  a  modern  teacher  to  drive  a  child  through 
the  Latin  grammar,  is  one  quite  justified  in  telling 
her  to  spare  him  every  kind  of  disagreeable  task? 
For  is  one  giving  the  child,  by  thus  smoothing  every 
pebble  from  his  path,  the  proper  preliminary  train- 
ing for  a  world  that,  even  under  the  best  conditions, 
bristles  with  disagreeable  duties? 

As  has  been  said,  the  business  of  education  is  to 
make  sound  physical,  mental,  and  moral  fibre;  and 
human  fibre  of  any  kind  is  built  up  only  by  constant 
and  judicious  exercise.  Therefore  common  sense 
would  dictate  that  where  there  is  any  physical  weak- 


i8o  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

ness,  this  less  strong  part  of  the  body  should  be 
carefully,  but  still  thoroughly,  exercised  to  equal 
strength  with  the  rest;  that  where  there  is  mental 
slowness  or  blankness,  this  deficient  part  of  the  brain 
should  be  put,  by  careful  development,  on  a  par 
with  the  rest;  that  where  there  is  moral  flabbiness, 
these  halting  portions  of  the  character  should  be 
strengthened,  in  the  only  way  they  can  be  trained, 
by  wisely  repeated  exercise. 

So  far  as  relates  to  his  physical  nature,  the  play 
instinct,  where  conditions  are  right,  will  take  care  of 
the  child,  developing  and  exercising  his  muscles  just 
as  they  may  need.  To  reason,  however,  that  be- 
cause the  play  instinct,  when  given  proper  scope, 
will  care  for  the  children's  bodies,  therefore  a  kindred 
instinct  will  train  their  minds  and  morals,  on  con- 
dition only  that  there  be  offered  to  their  minds  a 
widely  elective  course  and  to  their  morals  a  sunny 
atmosphere,  is  the  falsest  of  analogies.  Yet  in  the 
desire  to  keep  the  child  in  sympathetic  surroundings, 
in  the  wish  to  spare  him  even  a  suggestion  of  the 
rod,  the  new  education  is  in  serious  danger  of  pro- 
viding too  much  atmosphere  and  too  little  training, 
of  taking  the  pupil  forward  along  lines  of  least  mental 
resistance,  and  of  expecting  that,  contrary  to  the 
experience  of  mankind  since  the  beginning  of  history, 
well-disciplined  minds  will  result  although  there 


DEMAND  FOR  DISCIPLINE  181 

has  been  no  formal  discipline,  that  a  moral  habit 
will  be  established  even  though  few  opportunities  for 
the  exercise  of  the  virtues  have  ever  been  afforded. 

The  fundamental  error  in  much  that  passes  for 
good  education  is  in  providing  for  too  much  surface 
and  too  little  depth.  Education  is  made  an  end  rather 
than  a  means.  It  is  not  what  we  teach,  it  is  how  we 
teach,  that  is  essential.  In  attempting  to  improve 
the  public  schools  the  mistake  has  been  made  of 
increasing  the  curriculum  instead  of  the  teaching 
force.  Given  the  tools  of  reading,  writing,  and 
figuring,  the  good  teacher  will  make  one  further 
study,  if  need  be,  serve  every  purpose  of  primary 
education.  The  mental  vice  of  these  newspaper 
days  is  superficiality;  this  vice  the  schools  are  doing 
much  to  encourage.  Make  the  child  accurate,  thor- 
ough, persistent,  and  logical,  and  let  mere  infor- 
mation take  a  second  place.  If  he  has  acquired 
these  qualities,  he  has  learned  how  to  study;  in 
teaching  him  how  to  study  the  school  has  done  a 
large  share  of  its  proper  work.  Beyond  giving  him 
the  tools  of  knowledge,  the  primary  teaching  can  do 
little  toward  increasing  the  child's  stock  of  infor- 
mation; that  will  come  to  him  outside  the  school- 
room. 

It  cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  the  school 
is  a  gymnasium  for  making  the  child  acquisitive, 


i8a  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

receptive,  strong.  The  teaching  of  many  subjects 
does  not  conduce  to  this.  The  immature  brain  is 
naturally  restless  and  roving;  it  is  for  the  school  to 
give  it  the  power  of  concentration.  A  child's  mind 
is  impatient  and  easily  diverted;  it  is  for  the  school 
to  teach  it  patience  and  perseverance.  A  hasty 
clutching  at  many  things  is  easier  and  pleasanter,  to 
both  teacher  and  pupil,  than  thorough  mastery  of 
any  one  thing;  but  the  child  who  has  really  con- 
quered one  subject  is  he  who,  in  manhood,  will  win 
the  knowledge  of  a  thousand. 

Thanks  to  the  ferment  of  modern  ideas,  it  is  now 
generally  appreciated  by  teachers  that  twice  as 
much  —  nay,  ten  times  as  much  —  can  be  done 
with  a  pupil  through  sympathy  as  through  com- 
pulsion; it  is  now  understood  that  interest  plays 
an  incalculable  part  in  education;  that  a  child  learns 
twice  as  quickly  and  twice  as  well  if  he  be  led  to  what 
he  likes  than  if  he  be  driven  to  what  he  hates.  It  is 
seldom  now,  therefore,  that  a  child  is  made  to  study 
a  subject  simply  because  he  happens  to  dislike  it. 
Likewise  the  uniform,  Procrustean  course  is  giving 
way  to  the  elastic  curriculum,  in  which  the  pupil 
is  allowed  some  liberty  of  intelligent  choice.  More- 
over, the  new  education  has  discovered  that  to 
exercise  the  mind  without  also  using  the  muscles  is 
such  torture  to  a  child  as  adults  can  neither'remember 


DEMAND  FOR  DISCIPLINE  183 

nor  imagine.  Therefore  the  rod  of  rigid  discipline 
in  the  schoolroom  is  being  abandoned,  and  manual 
training,  as  well  as  ordered  play,  is  giving  needed 
scope  to  active  muscles,  and  is  arousing,  at  the 
same  time,  many  a  dormant  mind.  All  this  makes 
for  a  freer  development  of  the  child  and  for  the 
strengthening  of  faculties  and  powers  that  the  old 
education  crushed  or  atrophied.  But  the  new  educa- 
tion, in  its  joy  at  these  discoveries,  in  its  zeal  to  put 
them  in  practice  to  the  highest  possible  degree, 
runs,  as  is  the  nature  of  humanity,  to  the  opposite 
extreme;  and  much  that  was  good  in  the  rod,  much 
that  was  salutary,  much  that  is  absolutely  essential 
to  the  moral  fibre  of  the  race,  has  been  cast  aside  too. 
Hence  many  a  youth  to-day,  expensively  educated 
in  an  extreme  of  newness,  has  no  tenacity  of  memory, 
no  vigor  of  mind,  no  power  of  concentration,  no 
ability  to  do  real  work.  He  may  have  skimmed  over 
many  topics,  but  he  knows  no  one  subject;  he  may 
exhibit  a  pretty  facility  and  grace,  but  no  depth  or 
power  of  mind;  he  may  possess  a  certain  shielded 
innocence,  but  no  deep-seated  morality.  Such  a 
youth  is  a  child  at  twenty,  at  that  age  when  to  be  a 
child  is  to  be  the  prey  of  every  earthly  evil. 

Were  this  to  be  the  general  result  of  new  methods 
in  education,  were  this  weakening  of  his  fibre  in- 
separable from  the  training  of  a  child  under  modern 


i84  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

conditions,  one  ought,  in  the  cant  phrase  of  the 
politician,  to  "view  with  alarm"  the  present  situ- 
ation. But  these  shortcomings,  serious  though 
they  may  be,  are  only  temporary,  incident  to  a  time 
of  transition  and  readjustment.  It  is  but  natural 
for  the  new  education  to  exalt  its  own  newness  and 
to  decry  the  old-fashion  of  the  former  ways.  No 
change  of  fashion,  however,  can  alter  eternal  prin- 
ciples; and  what  was  good,  what  was  fundamental, 
in  the  ancient  methods  will  endure,  will  prove  itself 
indispensable,  will  eventually  retake  in  all  schools 
that  place  which  in  the  best  schools  it  has  never 
lost. 

Teaching  will  never  return  to  the  use  of  the  rod; 
doubtless  it  will  never  go  back  to  the  Latin  grammar 
and  to  the  sort  of  instruction  which  that  grammar 
typifies;  but,  in  one  form  or  another,  the  new  ideas 
will,  as  they  adjust  themselves,  devise  means  to 
secure  to  the  pupil  that  steady  discipline  and  that 
wholesome  drudgery  essential  to  the  development  of 
sound  mental  and  moral  fibre.  Meanwhile,  through 
the  ferment  and  often  the  wild  license  of  this  so- 
called  new  education  will  have  been  secured  to  every 
child  his  birthright  of  individual  development,  of 
self-expression,  of  sympathetic  understanding  and 
helpfulness  from  others.  These  could  not  have  been 
attained  without  a  reaction,  often  an  excessive 


DEMAND  FOR  DISCIPLINE  185 

reaction,  against  the  old  methods  of  compulsion 
symbolized  by  the  rod;  but  the  final  result  will  be 
such,  it  seems  almost  certain,  as  to  justify  even  that 
present  extravagance  of  laissez-faire  and  that  foolish 
mollycoddling  which  bring  many  things  in  modern 
teaching  into  deserved  contempt. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE    DEMAND    FOR    A    CITIZENS'    HIGH    SCHOOL 

THE  free  high  school,  in  most  of  the  States, 
is  an  accomplished  fact.  The  public  has 
decreed  it,  the  teachers  have  accepted  it, 
the  whole  educational  scheme  is  based  upon  its 
permanency.  Earnestly  desiring  to  give  every 
child  a  fair  chance,  fearful  that  without  such  oppor- 
tunity the  world  may  lose  talents  which  only  the 
common  secondary  school  can  develop,  jealous  of  an 
aristocracy  of  learning,  and  believing  that  a  com- 
mon high  school  will  break  down  such  an  aristocracy, 
the  sovereign  people,  wisely  or  unwisely,  have,  in 
most  of  the  leading  centres  of  the  country,  decided 
that  there  shall  be  public  high  schools.  In  accept- 
ing the  accomplished  fact,  however,  we  are  not 
thereby  bound  to  acquiesce  in  the  common  under- 
standing of  what  that  free  high  school  should  be. 

It  is  not  unjust  to  assert  that  in  the  usual  con- 
ception of  the  high  school  it  is  one  of  two  things:  it 
is  the  upper  part  of  the  ladder  —  to  use  a  hackneyed 
phrase  —  by  which  the  poorest  as  well  as  the  richest 

186 


DEMAND  FOR  CITIZENS'  HIGH  SCHOOL     187 

may  go  straight  from  the  cradle  to  the  university, 
or  it  is  itself  the  "people's  college."  Under  the  first 
conception  the  free  high  school  tends  to  become, 
mainly,  a  fitting  school  for  its  neighboring  colleges; 
under  the  second  it  degenerates  into  a  cheap  edition, 
in  paper  covers  and  with  popular  illustrations,  of 
that  edition  de  luxe,  the  university.  In  the  first 
case  the  school  will  probably  offer  a  good  course  of 
study  (viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  book-learning), 
but  one  far  too  narrow;  in  the  second  it  is  sure  to 
present  courses  whose  range  is  exceeded  only  by 
their  shallowness. 

Both  these  conceptions  of  what  the  secondary 
school  should  be  and  do  are  wrong.  Any  high 
school  which  acts  upon  them  is  misusing  the  people's 
money  and  taking  the  straight  way  to  deserved  ob- 
livion. The  only  justification  for  a  common  high 
school  supported  by  the  citizens  is  that  it  should 
develop  a  better  citizenship.  Only  that  high 
school  has  any  right  to  live  which  has  as  its  sole 
object  the  real  education  of  its  boys  and  girls  into 
their  fullest  usefulness.  This,  of  itself,  should 
admit  these  boys  and  girls  to  any  and  every  college; 
this,  of  itself,  will  so  admit  them  when  the  high 
schools  devote  themselves  to  and  accomplish  this 
sole  aim;  this,  moreover,  if  it  be  fully  done  and 
thoroughly  availed  of,  will  give  these  boys  and  girls 


i88  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

an  ample  university  training  for  that  profession 
which  every  decent  American  should  follow  —  the 
profession  of  good  citizenship. 

Let  it  keep  steadily  before  itself  this  aim  toward 
citizenship,  and  the  high  school  becomes  a  tre- 
mendous social  force,  justifying  almost  unlimited 
expenditures.  Even  though  but  a  small  fraction 
of  the  youth  of  the  town  attend  it,  the  influence, 
direct  and  indirect,  of  such  a  school  will  make  it 
the  wisest  of  investments,  will  bring  in  ample  re- 
turns to  the  community  in  the  social  uplift,  in  the 
impulse  toward  good  government,  given  to  all  the 
town. 

But  such  a  high  school  will  not  be  merely  a  place 
for  hearing  lessons,  for  imparting  certain  con- 
ventional information,  or  for  preparing  boys  and 
girls  for  college  examinations.  Its  first  purpose, 
its  last  purpose,  its  sole  purpose  will  be  develop- 
ment: will  be  the  wisest  possible  bridging-over  of 
the  important  period  between  childhood  and  man- 
hood, will  be  the  turning  of  the  irresponsible  child 
into  the  responsible  citizen.  It  will  then  always  be 
a  question,  in  the  high  school,  not  what  the  pupil 
learns,  but  what  he  becomes;  not  how  he  passes  his 
examinations,  but  how  he  strengthens  his  character. 

The  never-obscured  aim  of  the  rightly  conducted 
high  school  should  be  wisely  to  confirm  the  in- 


DEMAND  FOR  CITIZENS'  HIGH  SCHOOL      189 

dividuality  and  the  will  of  its  pupils  and  thoroughly 
to  establish  a  sense  of  social  duty.  Fortunately, 
there  is  no  easier  time  in  which  to  strengthen  char- 
acter and  to  arouse  a  sense  of  social  responsibility 
than  in  the  very  period  of  life  with  which  the  high 
school  has  to  deal.  Adolescence  means  tumult; 
but  it  means,  also,  that  the  social  instinct  is  active, 
that  altruism  is  maYked,  that  attempts  at  personal 
perfection  are  readily  stimulated.  All  the  forces 
most  needed  in  the  making  of  a  good  citizen  are  at 
this  age  nearest  the  surface,  most  tractable,  most 
teachable,  if  but  right  methods  are  taken  to  en- 
courage and  to  develop  them. 

To  utilize,  however,  these  forces,  to  form  character, 
to  create  out  of  the  raw  material  of  adolescence  the 
fine  flower  of  manhood  and  womanhood,  demands 
a  remodeling  of  the  high  school  within  and  an 
awakening  of  the  citizen  without.  It  demands  that 
this  secondary  school  should  be,  in  the  eyes  both  of 
teachers  and  of  citizens,  the  supreme  social  force  of 
the  town.  This  the  high  school,  except  in  rarest 
instances,  to-day  is  not;  and  because  it  is  not  the 
centre  and  fountain-head  of  citizenship,  because, 
as  a  rule,  it  is  simply  a  fitting  school  for  college  or  a 
polishing  school  for  a  few  boys  and  for  many  girls 
who,  not  needing  to  work,  wish  a  genteel  smatter- 
ing of  culture,  the  attendance  upon  it  is  com- 


1 9o  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

paratively  so  small  and,  in  the  eyes  of  many  thought- 
ful persons,  its  results  are  so  incommensurate  with 
the  large  share  of  the  public  moneys  which  it  ab- 
sorbs. Were  the  high  school  made  a  guiding  force 
in  the  whole  life  of  the  town,  were  it  to  prove  it- 
self an  almost  necessary  agent  in  making  boys  and 
girls,  not  only  into  real  citizens,  but  into  effective 
workers,  the  attendance  upon  it  would  amazingly 
increase,  and  its  action  for  individual  good  upon  the 
pupils,  its  reaction  for  general  good  upon  the  citi- 
zens and  the  lower  schools,  would  be  far  beyond 
the  present. 

It  is  easy  to  deal  in  general  statements  and  to 
draw  from  them  equally  vague  conclusions;  only 
those'  theories  which  can  be  translated  into  action 
are  worth  consideration.  Therefore  let  us  take  up 
the  three  aspects  of  the  case  and  determine  what  the 
high  school  should  demand  from  the  lower  schools, 
from  its  own  pupils,  and  from  the  citizens;  and,  in 
return,  what  influences  for  good  it  should  exert  upon 
those  lower  schools,  upon  those  pupils  of  its  own, 
and  upon  the  community  in  which  it  is  established. 

The  high  school  which  does  its  full  duty  to  its 
town  should  set  the  educational  standards  for  that 
town.  Therefore  it  should  rigorously  exact  from 
the  lower  schools  pupils  with  the  qualities  and  knowl- 
edge fundamental  to  good  citizenship;  it  should  de- 


DEMAND  FOR  CITIZENS'  HIGH  SCHOOL     191 

mand,  that  is,  that  the  graduates  of  the  elementary 
come  to  the  high  school  able  to  read  with  fluency 
and  understanding,  able  to  write  a  clear,  legible, 
handsome  hand,  able  to  speak  or  write  their  thoughts 
plainly  and  in  order,  thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
four  arithmetical  processes  and  the  principles  of 
algebra,  and  with  such  an  understanding  of  form 
and  such  a  knowledge  of  its  relations  as  are  given 
by  really  educative  work  in  plane  geometry  and  in 
mechanical  and  freehand  drawing.  More  than  this, 
the  high  schools  ought  to  demand  from  the  ele- 
mentary schools  pupils  who  are  alert,  active,  quick, 
resourceful,  with  their  powers  of  observation  keenly 
alive,  their  desire  to  learn  most  eager,  their  mem- 
ories retentive  and  sure,  their  spirits  daunted  by  no 
press  of  work,  provided  the  work  be  fitted  to  their 
capacities  and  needs.  The  high  schools  have  a 
right  to  demand  all  these  things  because  they  are 
the  activities  natural  to  children,  activities  which, 
if  not  discouraged  or  repressed,  will  continue  far 
beyond  school  life.  Therefore,  if  the  child  comes 
to  the  high  school  without  these  important  qualities, 
it  is,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases,  not  his  fault, 
but  that  of  the  lower  schools  or  of  the  home,  upon 
which,  jointly,  rests  the  responsibility  of  preserving 
the  normal  child  in  that  blessed  state  of  eager,  ac- 
quisitive growth  in  which  the  good  God  created  him. 


ig2  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

The  first  step,  then,  in  the  improvement  of  the 
high  school  is  to  make  the  lower  schools  better  by 
taking  them  out  of  politics,  by  putting  experts  in 
control  of  them,  by  requiring  a  professional  educa- 
tion of  and  stimulating  a  professional  pride  in  the 
teachers,  by  increasing  the  proportion  of  teachers 
to  pupils,  by  abolishing  the  grading  system,  and, 
having  done  these  things,  by  demanding  then  that 
there  shall  no  longer  be  a  waste  of  from  one  to  three 
years  in  the  school  life  of  every  average  elementary 
pupil. 

For  the  sake  of  argument,  however,  let  it  be  sup- 
posed that  all  its  pupils,  or  a  great  majority  of  them, 
come  to  the  high  school  either  at  an  earlier  age  than 
now,  or  with  most  of  the  work  of  the  first  two  high- 
school  years  already  done.  Suppose  them,  more- 
over, fully  equipped  with  the  tools  of  social  life  and 
possessing  still  that  fund  of  inquisitiveness  and  ac« 
quisitiveness  with  -which  they  were  born.  What 
has  the  high  school  a  right  to  require  from  them  in 
order  that  this  school  may  do  its  full  duty  to  the 
community  and  may  justify  its  existence  as  a  free 
institution?  It  has  a  right  to  demand  that  these 
pupils  shall  give  themselves  almost  wholly  to  the 
school  work,  that  this  work  shall  be  supreme, 
that  it  shall  not  be  done  and  thought  of  only 
at  such  intervals  as  the  pupils  may  snatch  from 


DEMAND  FOR  CITIZENS'  HIGH  SCHOOL     193 

parties,  theatres,  and  other  distracting  interests. 
The  high  school  is  a  final  opportunity  given  by 
the  whole  body  of  citizens  to  a  certain  few  of 
its  younger  members  to  achieve  a  better  citizen- 
ship; and  it  is  a  violation  of  a  distinct  obligation 
for  these  favored  youth  not  to  avail  themselves 
to  the  full  of  this  special  privilege.  Attentiveness, 
honest  work,  the  major  share  of  his  thought 
and  interest  are  all  that  the  high  school  can 
demand  from  the  pupil;  but  until  it  exacts  and 
receives  this  it  will  not  become,  as  it  should,  an 
effective  social  force.  The  second  step  in  the  im- 
provement of  the  high  school,  then,  is  to  make  it, 
to  paraphrase  an  epigram  of  President  Walker's, 
a  place  for  young  men  and  young  women  to  work, 
not  for  boys  and  girls  to  play.  The  high-school 
day  should  be  longer,  the  outlook  of  the  school  upon 
life  should  be  more  serious,  its  standards  of  attain- 
ment heightened,  its  scope  broadened,  its  purpose 
deepened.  Then  would  no  longer  be  seen  the  ex- 
traordinary spectacle  of  the  American  people,  with 
the  best  average  mental  endowment  of  all  modern 
nations,  exhibiting  in  many  of  its  high-school 
graduates  an  immaturity  of  thought  and  a  feeble- 
ness of  purpose  in  marked  contrast  to  the  youth  of 
like  age  in  the  British,  German,  and  other  Northern 
peoples,  an  immaturity  and  feebleness  most  in- 


1 94 

imical  to  useful  citizenship,  and  wholly  unnecessary 
did  the  parents  and  schools  but  do  their  educational 
duty. 

In  the  third  place,  the  high  school  ought  to  ask 
certain  things  from  the  citizens  and  to  make  it  clear 
that  its  success  depends  upon  their  fulfilment  of 
these  conditions.  It  has  a  right  to  ask  from  parents 
that  they  shall  act  in  harmony  with  the  teachers, 
shall  uphold  them  in  every  way,  shall  regard  school- 
ing as  a  serious  matter,  and  shall  supplement  in  the 
home  the  scheme  of  education  for  citizenship  which 
the  school  is  following.  It  has  a  right  to  demand 
from  the  citizens  in  general  that  they  shall  em- 
phasize the  importance  of  rightly  conducted  high- 
school  work,  shall  further  it  in  every  way,  shall 
encourage  fit  boys  and  girls  to  attend  the  school 
and  to  submit  to  its  proper  discipline,  and  shall  deal 
as  liberally  with  it  as  the  means  of  the  community 
and  the  not-to-be-neglected  needs  of  the  lower 
schools  permit.  And  it  has  a  right  to  demand  from 
the  voters  that  they  shall  select  as  their  school 
representatives  well-educated,  fair-minded,  broad- 
spirited  men  and  women,  who  understand  their 
duties  to  be  mainly  supervisory,  and  who  will  not 
try,  therefore,  to  dictate  in  matters  of  education, 
where  they  are  but  ignorant  amateurs  and  the 
teachers  are,  or  ought  to  be,  trained  experts.  The 


DEMAND  FOR  CITIZENS'  HIGH  SCHOOL     195 

third  step  in  the  improvement  of  the  high  school  is, 
then,  to  educate  the  public  to  regard  it  as  a  train- 
ing school  for  citizenship,  to  realize  that  the  right 
education  of  a  citizen  is  a  business  as  important  and 
as  difficult  as  is  the  right  education  of  a  physician, 
to  be  willing  to  put  that  education  wholly  into  the 
hands  of  experts,  and  to  "back"  those  experts  with 
parental  authority,  social  support,  and  money. 

This  ideal  high  school,  having  secured  from  the 
lower  schools  pupils  who  are  properly  trained  in  the 
mechanics  of  social  intercourse,  and  from  whom 
the  freshness  and  bloom  of  eager,  untiring  youth 
have  not  been  rubbed  away;  having  persuaded  those 
pupils  and,  more  especially,  their  parents,  that  the 
high-school  work  is  first,  and  not  sixth  or  seventh, 
in  importance  in  the  daily  life;  having,  furthermore, 
aroused  the  citizens  in  general  to  the  true  and  limited 
functions  of  a  school  committee  —  what  ought  the 
community  to  expect  from  a  high  school  so  favored  ? 
What,  to  reverse  the  inquiry  that  we  have  been 
making,  ought  the  high  school  to  do  for  the  lower 
schools,  for  its  own  pupils,  and  for  the  citizens  in 
general  ? 

To  the  lower  schools  such  a  perfected  high  school 
should  be  a  guide  and  an  inspiration.  The  forward 
impulse  of  education  which  is  to  keep  it  abreast 
with  advancing  civilization  should  come  from  the 


• 


196  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

high  school,  that  school  leading  the  lower  ones  as 
the  college  ought  to  inspire  it.  As  yet  the  high 
schools,  far  from  appreciating  the  problems  of  the 
primary  and  grammar  school,  scarcely  realize  that 
such  questions  exist.  They  deal  with  their  own 
pupils  and  courses  as  though  the  former  had  no  past 
and  the  latter  no  foundations,  seemingly  oblivious 
to  the  fact  that  the  problems  of  the  high  schools  are 
bound  up  in  those  of  the  elementary  schools  and 
cannot  be  solved  except  as  those  of  the  primary  and 
grammar  schools  are  settled.  And  those  earlier 
problems  can  be  solved  only  by  the  aid  of  that 
knowledge  of  the  older  pupils  and  of  their  general 
aims  and  capacities  which  the  high-school  teacher 
alone  can  have. 

But  the  initiative  in  this  cooperation  must  come 
from  the  high  schools.  They  must  realize  (what  the 
colleges  are  just  beginning  to  appreciate)  that  every 
higher  institution  of  learning  must,  for  its  own  safety 
and  right  development,  thoroughly  understand  and 
actively  promote  the  work  of  all  those  below  it.  In 
much  of  the  work  of  the  elementary  schools  the 
high-school  teachers,  much  to  their  own  profit,  might 
take  direct  part,  by  actual  teaching,  by  showing  how 
the  preliminary  lead  to  the  higher  studies,  by  making 
available  there  the  books  and  apparatus  with  which 
every  high  school  should  be  equipped. 


DEMAND  FOR  CITIZENS'  HIGH  SCHOOL     197 

But,  more  than  this,  the  high-school  teachers 
should  advise  with  and  learn  from  those  of  the  ele- 
mentary schools,  all  grades  of  teachers  regarding 
the  public-school  course  as  a  connected  whole,  all 
meeting  together  for  real  discussion  and  mutual 
enlightenment,  each  one  of  them  anxious  to  deal 
with  every  boy  and  girl,  not  piecemeal  —  not  as  a 
third-grade  pupil  or  as  a  high-school  freshman  — 
but  as  an  individual  human  being  who  during  ten 
or  twelve  years  is  to  be  steadily  and  systematically 
developed  by  successive  instructors,  each  of  whom, 
as  she  takes  that  boy,  is  fully  conversant  with  the 
work  that  he  has  done  and  with  the  work  that  he  is 
going  to  do.  Through  this  real  cooperation  of  the 
teachers,  not  only  would  the  high  school  immensely 
stimulate  the  entire  public-school  system,  but  it 
would,  by  making  the  pupils  of  the  elementary  schools 
see  the  coherence  of  all  educational  work,  add  largely 
to  the  number  of  children  entering  the  high  school. 
With  such  mutual  understanding  and  cordial  work- 
ing together,  the  high  school  would  in  time  become 
the  heart  of  the  public-school  system,  instead  of 
being,  as  it  now  too  often  is,  an  extraneous  thing, 
little  thought  of  by  the  average  parent,  little  sought 
by  the  average  pupil,  and  regarded  with  misgiving 
by  many  thoughtful  citizens. 

For  its  own  pupils  the  high  school  must  do  much 


198  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

more  than  to  give  them  a  smattering  of  a  conven- 
tional list  of  languages,  literature,  mathematics, 
and  the  sciences.  It  must  profoundly  affect  their  life 
and  stimulate  their  ideals.  It  takes  them  at  a  time 
when  the  social  instinct  is  newly  awakened,  when, 
therefore,  it  is  strong  and  undismayed  by  experience, 
when  it  is  most  easily  guided  and  fixed  in  right 
directions.  The  sphere  of  the  high  school  is  pre- 
eminently one  of  social  relationships  and  all  its  work 
must  be  emphasized  in  that  direction.  Moreover, 
in  the  four  years  of  the  high  school  the  bent  of  the 
boy,  if  he  have  one,  will  be  clearly  shown  to  those 
who  have  eyes  to  see;  and  it  is  the  most  extravagant 
waste  of  human  forces  if  every  effort  is  not  made  to 
perfect  that  boy  as  far  as  possible  in  the  way  toward 
which  his  nature  points.  Not  only  should  he  be 
made  to  understand  and  to  feel,  to  the  highest  extent 
that  his  natural  aptitudes  permit,  his  privileges  and 
his  duties  as  a  citizen  of  the  State;  not  only  should 
his  physical,  intellectual,  and  moral  nature  be  pre- 
pared to  the  highest  degree  that  any  -school  can  do 
it  for  the  immense  and  solemn  task  which  he  has  to 
undertake;  but  he  should  be  helped  in  every  possible 
way  to  make  that  task  of  right  living  an  easy  and  a 
happy  one,  by  having  his  education  guided  in  the 
paths  to  which  his  aptitudes  point,  by  giving  him 
resources  for  his  leisure  and  his  elder  years,  by 


DEMAND  FOR  CITIZENS'  HIGH  SCHOOL    199 

grounding  him  in  the  eternal  truths  which  alone 
make  life  worth  the  having. 

Therefore  the  work  of  the  high  school  should  be, 
as  far  as  possible,  individual;  and  in  order  that  it 
may  be  individual  it  must  be  diversified.  Almost 
every  boy  or  girl  who  comes  to  the  school  is  self- 
conscious,  reserved,  "offish,"  but  is  at  the  same  time 
receptive  to  what  is  rightly  given,  docile  when  skil- 
fully led,  eager  for  hero  worship,  whether  the  hero 
be  found  in  the  schoolroom  or  in  books.  Moreover, 
almost  any  youth,  no  matter  how  shy  or  indifferent, 
has  some  side  of  his  nature  that  can  be  awakened, 
stimulated,  and  made  a  means  to  arouse  the  whole 
of  him  to  the  influence  of  education.  Of  these 
facts  —  for  they  are  facts  of  psychology  as  well 
as  of  common  experience  —  the  good  high-school 
teacher  will  avail  himself;  and,  having,  from  his  own 
observation  as  well  as  from  consultation  with  the 
boy's  earlier  teachers,  grasped  the  pupil's  nature, 
will  lead  him,  directly  or  indirectly,  to  those  sub- 
jects which  will  most  readily  and  fully  arouse  and 
stimulate. 

A  foolish  notion  prevails  that  those  who  advocate 
election  of  studies  in  the  high  school  mean  that  the 
boy  shall  choose  haphazard;  and  the  argument 
follows  that  he  will,  of  course,  choose  what  is  easiest. 
Nothing  could  be  farther  from  the  truth.  The 


200  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

teacher,  not  the  pupil,  is  really  to  make  election, 
and  the  subjects  chosen  for  the  boy  will  not  be  those 
which  are  easiest  to  him,  but  those  which  meet  the 
peculiar  needs  of  his  nature,  those  which  answer  — 
as  certain  foods  best  supply  certain  physical  wants 
—  the  purposes  of  his  fullest  development. 

It  is  not  at  all  essential  that  the  graduate  of  a 
high  school  should  have  been  taught  a  conventional 
list  of  topics;  but  it  is  vital,  if  he  is  to  amount  to 
anything  as  a  man  and  as  a  citizen,  that  he  shall 
have  been  really  educated  in  the  high  school  in  such 
a  way  that  he  values  knowledge,  wishes  to  acquire 
more  knowledge,  realizes  that  education  is  power, 
and  appreciates  that  the  possession  even  of  only  a 
high-school  education  lays  upon  him  peculiar  ob- 
ligations of  citizenship  which  he  has  no  right  to 
shirk. 

Finally,  in  the  life  of  the  community  the  secondary 
free  school,  if  it  is  to  justify  itself  by  being  a  train- 
ing ground  for  citizenship,  must  become  a  much 
more  vital  factor  than,  in  most  cases,  it  now  is.  In 
conjunction  with  the  public  library  it  should  be  the 
town's  intellectual  centre.  Its  work  and  its  lessons 
should  by  no  means  be  confined  to  the  pupils  in 
attendance,  but  should  reach  out,  first,  as  has  been 
already  stated,  to  the  elementary  schools,  and  then 
to  all  the  people  in  the  community.  It  should 


DEMAND  FOR  CITIZENS'  HIGH  SCHOOL     201 

carry  on  work  analogous  to  that  of  university  ex- 
tension by  providing  courses  of  lectures,  by  organiz- 
ing classes  for  adults,  by  encouraging  its  teachers  to 
lead  in  everything  which  makes  for  the  best  social 
and  intellectual  progress  of  the  town.  Not  at  all 
satisfied  with  giving  lessons  for  five  hours  a  day  to  a 
comparatively  few  young  men  and  women,  it  should 
carry  on  its  teachings,  directly  or  indirectly,  through 
the  whole  of  every  day  of  the  week,  encouraging, 
stimulating,  and  leading  the  entire  community  to  a 
higher  mental  and  social  life. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOW    THE    COLLEGES    RUIN    THE    HIGH    SCHOOLS 

IT  SEEMS  superfluous  to  argue  that  the  average 
high  school  is,  in  large  degree,  a  failure.  It  is 
a  lamentable  fact  to  be  acknowledged  and  faced, 
a  fact  demonstrated  by  the  small  number  of  grad- 
uates, by  the  preponderance  of  girls  among  those 
graduates,  and  by  the  present  widespread  and  well- 
founded  agitation  to  stop  the  economic  and  moral 
waste  of  youth  between  fourteen  and  eighteen  years 
of  age. 

I  have  no  wish,  however,  to  add  my  jeremiad  to  the 
already  loud  chorus  that  the  high  schools  are  not 
doing  their  work,  such  as  it  is,  in  a  satisfactory  way. 
Within  their  limits  these  schools  are  producing  better 
and  more  lasting  results  than  ever  before.  What  I 
do  purpose  to  criticise  is  those  limits  themselves;  and 
in  doing  that  I  find  fault,  not  with  the  high-school 
masters,  but  with  the  public  and  with  the  univer- 
sities. 

The  high  school  fails  because,  having  been  created 
to  give  intellectual,  moral,  and  industrial  sustenance 

203 


COLLEGES  RUIN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOLS      203 

to  the  people,  it  has  been  commandeered  to  feed  the 
colleges;  it  fails  because,  having  been  established  as 
the  crown  of  the  common  school,  it  has  become  the 
tail  of  the  university  kite;  it  fails  because,  having 
been  subsidized  to  solve  the  complex  educational 
problems  of  adolescence,  it  has,  in  large  part,  wasted 
its  energies  upon  cramming  a  few  pupils  for  the 
artificial,  and  often  outrageous,  demands  of  college- 
entrance  papers. 

The  people  would  not  sanction  the  relatively 
enormous  expense  of  high  schools  did  they  not  be- 
lieve that,  by  making  secondary  education  free, 
they  are  giving  every  boy  and  girl  the  best  possible 
guidance  through  the  critical  years  of  early  adoles- 
cence. They  "sense"  the  fact  that,  could  these 
years  be  rightly  treated  educationally,  the  saving 
to  the  State  in  money,  the  gain  to  the  world  in  lives 
and  characters,  would  far  outweigh  the  cost.  In  not 
meeting  this  expectation,  in  neglecting  years  ago  to 
grapple  with  the  most  vital  of  all  school  problems  — 
that  of  holding  a  majority  of  youth  in  school  in  order 
to  prepare  them  for  their  highest  usefulness  as  citi- 
zens and  workers  —  the  high  school  has  failed  to 
meet  the  most  urgent  need  of  every  American  com- 
munity. 

The  creating  of  free  high  schools  killed,  in  most 
instances,  the  old  academies.  Thus  were  cut  off 


204  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

) 

the  main  feeders  of  the  colleges,  the  chief  places  in 
which  the  children  of  the  doctor,  the  lawyer,  and  the 
other  leading  citizens  might  fit.  These  leading 
citizens,  as  a  rule,  were  elected  to  the  school  com- 
mittees; and,  when  the  colleges  demanded,  by  their 
examinations,  certain  standards  and  methods  of 
teaching,  it  followed  naturally,  and  without  any 
shadow  of  conspiracy  on  the  part  of  any  one,  that 
the  high  schools  became,  and  in  most  instances  have 
remained,  fitting  schools  for  the  nearest  university. 
As  most  communities  are  too  poor  to  provide  more 
than  one  course  of  study,  that  one  governed  by  the 
cramming  needs  of  half  a  dozen  college-preparatory 
pupils  was  made  to  determine  the  educational 
atmosphere  and  fix  the  mental  boundaries  for  the 
hundred  others  who  have  no  faintest  notion  of 
entering  a  college.  Moreover,  in  thus  crystallizing 
along  university-made  lines,  the  high  school  really 
prescribes  college-preparatory  work  and  methods 
for  the  grammar  and  primary  schools;  for,  through 
the  successive  elementary  years,  the  eighth  or  ninth 
grade  child  must  have  acquired  just  that  cut-and- 
dried  information,  just  that  type  of  examinable  mind, 
which  shall  admit,  first  to  the  high  school  and  then 
to  the  university.  All  this  has  been  done,  and  is 
being  done,  in  face  of  the  fact  that  only  about  10 
per  cent,  (to  put  the  figure  high)  of  a  community's 


COLLEGES  RUIN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOLS      205 

children  graduate  from  the  high  school,  and  that  only 
2  or  3  per  cent,  ever  go  to  the  colleges  which  thus 
overshadow  the  whole  public-school  system. 

I  say  "overshadow"  advisedly,  for  under  the  very 
same  conditions  it  would  have  been  easily  possible 
for  the  colleges  —  had  they  viewed  education 
broadly  instead  of  narrowly,  democratically  instead 
of  aristocratically  —  to  flood  the  whole  school  course 
with  educational  sunshine  by  exacting  only  such 
standards  of  achievement  as  would  be  truly  educa- 
tive, really  developing,  and  ceaselessly  stimulating 
to  the  pupils  of  the  grammar  and  high  schools.  As 
it  is,  however,  shadow  is  too  mild  a  word;  the  col- 
lege-entrance examination  is  an  incubus  which  stunts 
the  lives  and  limits  the  careers  of  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  children,  and  which  keeps  teachers  at 
educational  stone-breaking  when  they  ought  to  be, 
and  when  so  many  of  them  would  like  to  be,  mold- 
ing, and  expanding,  and  illuminating  human  lives. 
But  from  this  obsession  schools  and  teachers  cannot 
escape  so  long  as  the  public  finds  its  satisfaction  — 
as  most  communities  do  —  in  boasting,  not  how 
much  its  high  school  is  doing  for  the  ninety-seven 
children  to  whom  that  is  the  end  and  crown  of  their 
school  work,  but  how  well  it  fits  three  pupils  for 
Harvard,  Yale,  or  Smith. 

The  high  school  fails,  then,  to  serve  the  com- 


2o6  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

munity  needs  because,  thus  far,  it  has  hardly  tried 
to  meet  the  real  requirements  of  more  than  a  thirtieth 
of  its  rightful  constituency,  and  because  it  has  not 
given  even  to  that  collegiate  3  per  cent,  what  it  is 
good  for  them,  intellectually  and  morally,  to  have. 

The  adolescent  needs  hard  work  (provided  it  be 
not  exclusively  head  work)  and  strong  discipline; 
but  in  the  collegiate  shadow  which  is  more  and  more 
creeping  over  the  secondary  school,  aided  by  the 
foolishness  of  parents  in  encouraging  the  notion  that 
school  work  is  unimportant  as  compared  with  home 
demands,  social  life,  fraternities,  or  athletics,  the 
high-school  youth  has  much  leisure,  much  irregu- 
larity of  supervision,  much  time  to  roam  the  streets, 
and  no  definite  pressure  as  to  when  and  how  he 
shall  perform  his  work. 

The  adolescent  needs  much  physical  steadying 
and  many  interesting  and  absorbing  occupations 
to  counteract  the  clamorings  of  newly  awakened 
interests  and  passions;  but,  under  the  sedentary 
lecture  and  recitation  system  made  necessary,  if  he 
is  to  be  duly  fattened  for  the  college-examination 
shambles,  the  physical  side  of  his  education  —  unless 
it  be  through  interscholastic  games  which,  by  send- 
ing promising  athletic  material  to  the  colleges,  give 
the  preparatory  school  an  enviable  reputation  —  is 
practically  neglected ;  and,  as  for  interest  and  variety, 


COLLEGES  RUIN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOLS      207 

what  could  taboo  and  destroy  both  more  effectually 
than  the  rigid  and  rigorous  demands  of  a  formal  set 
of  examinations  prepared,  as  a  rule,  by  pedantic 
specialists  who  know  practically  nothing  of  the  fun- 
damental problems  and  needs  of  the  high  school  ? 

The  adolescent,  just  on  the  threshold  of  society, 
ought  to  prepare  for  social  living,  to  try  his  powers  on 
a  small  scale,  to  develop  his  individuality,  to  learn 
how  to  get  on  with  others,  to  foresee  and  foreknow 
the  demands  of  that  social  and  industrial  world 
which  is  to  be  the  medium  of  his  whole  subsequent 
career.  But  this  kind  of  education,  not  being 
examinable,  is  substantially  ruled  out.  Most  of 
this  essential  training  could  be  given  through  the 
present  high-school  studies  were  those  not  taught 
almost  solely  for  examination  ends.  How  much  real 
discipline  and  education,  for  example,  a  boy  might 
derive  from  Greek  and  Latin  were  they  presented 
as  a  revelation  of  Greek  and  Roman  life;  but  how 
less  than  nothing  the  youth  does  get  out  of  that 
potential  well-spring  when  his  daily  work  is  ground 
down  to  the  grammar,  to  the  intricacies  of  indirect 
discourse,  to  the  bad  English  of  prose  translations 
and  the  worse  Latin  of  alleged  versification!  How 
much  good  the  high-school  pupil  might  imbibe  from 
history  were  it  made  a  living  picture  of  the  progress 
and  aims  of  human  society,  of  the  splendid  upward 


2o8  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

sweep  of  civilization;  but  how  little  he  does  derive 
from  either  ancient  or  modern  history  when  the 
teacher  knows,  and  he  knows,  that  what  he  will  be 
examined  upon  is  the  biography  of  this  king,  the  plan 
of  that  battle,  and  the  chronology  of  certain  outward 
events  which  are  but  the  merest  froth  upon  the  deep, 
wide  stream  of  human  development!  How  much 
the  secondary-school  youth  might  learn  from  the 
elementary  sciences  were  they  made,  as  they  can 
be  made,  a  revelation  of  the  power  and  wisdom  of 
nature,  of  the  correlation  of  forces,  and  of  the  laws  of 
evolution;  but  how  futile  is  the  mind-stuff  that  comes 
from  performing  a  series  of  mummified  experiments 
in  two  or  three  apparently  unrelated  sciences !  How 
splendidly  at  sixteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age  the 
great  English  heritage  of  romantic,  poetic,  dramatic, 
and  historic  literature  might  be  used  to  inspire 
visions  of  noble  achievement,  to  stimulate  the 
innate  aspirations  of  adolescence  toward  high  and 
fine  ideals;  and  how  absolutely  all  these  lofty  things 
of  life,  these  precious  dreams  of  early  youth,  are 
destroyed  by  doling  out,  solely  for  examination 
purposes,  such  literary  sawdust  as  Burke' s  "Speech 
on  Conciliation"  and  the  "Ancient  Mariner!" 

The  adolescent  needs  to  believe,  if  he  is  to  submit 
to  formal  education  at  all,  that  what  he  is  doing  in 
the  high  school  is  of  some  ultimate  service,  that  he 


COLLEGES  RUIN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOLS      209 

is  getting  ready  to  take  his  place  as  an  active  worker 
and  a  real  factor  in  the  world.  He  feels  his  budding 
powers  and  he  wants  to  exercise  them;  he  begins  to 
apprehend  the  meaning  of  citizenship,  and  he  wants 
to  be  getting  ready  to  be  a  citizen;  he  begins  to  com- 
prehend money,  and  desires  to  shape  his  powers 
toward  earning  for  himself  and  for  that  family  which 
is  to  be.  All  these  motives  are  natural  and  right, 
and  should  be  ceaselessly  availed  of  in  the  secondary 
school.  But  one  cannot  persuade  a  youth  that  the 
subjects  in  the  college  catalogue,  desiccated  for 
examination  purposes,  are  leading  toward  these 
proper  and  interesting  ends.  One  cannot  honestly 
persuade  himself  that  these  things,  thus  taught,  will 
really  be  of  lasting  educational  use.  The  formal  dis- 
cipline involved  has,  of  course,  its  value,  but  it  is 
only  one  of  the  smallest  factors  in  the  real  develop- 
ment and  training  of  the  adolescent  youth.  Can 
we  successfully  maintain  that,  beyond  formal  dis- 
cipline, the  painful  groping  into  the  meanings  of 
Caesar,  the  committing  to  memory  of  the  rules  and 
exceptions  of  an  utterly  dead  language,  the  rehears- 
ing of  the  strategy  of  barbaric  battles,  the  working 
out  of  surds  and  simultaneous  equations,  the  hunt- 
ing down  of  Macaulay's  pedantic  allusions,  the  doing, 
substantially  by  rote,  of  a  few  meagre  experiments 
in  chemistry  and  physics,  really  prepare  a  boy  to  go 


sio          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

out  at  eighteen  intellectually,  physically,  and  morally 
ready  to  make  the  most  of  himself  in  the  social  and 
industrial  world? 

The  high  school  fails  because  it  treats  the  living 
organism  of  the  real  boy  and  girl,  the  living  organism 
of  the  school  society,  as  a  dead  machine  to  be  handled 
by  mechanical  means.  It  fails  because,  like  the 
Chinese,  it  bows  down  to  the  sacred  things  of  tradi- 
tion as  embodied  in  the  wooden  tests,  stupidly  — 
and,  I  venture  to  say,  ignorantly  —  imposed  by  col- 
lege authorities  who,  desiring  some  kind  of  sieve 
through  which  to  strain  their  applicants,  have  not 
in  the  least  concerned  themselves  with  the  effects 
of  that  straining  process  upon  the  whole  develop- 
ment of  education,  and,  therefore,  upon  the  very 
existence  of  modern  society. 

The  high  schools  will  continue  to  fail  just  so  long 
as  they  are  particeps  criminis  in  this  needless  slaugh- 
ter of  the  adolescent.  Every  high-school  boy  is  a 
problem  by  himself;  and  the  business  of  the  high 
school  is  to  develop  him,  as  an  individual,  to  his 
highest  possible  usefulness  as  a  man  and  as  a  citizen. 
To  be  so  developed,  he  must,  in  the  first  place,  be 
disciplined  by  hard,  serious,  steady  work;  to  do  that 
hard  work  he  must  be  interested  in  it;  and,  to  be 
interested  in  it,  he  must  himself  see  that  it  is  going 
to  be  of  use.  A  boy  will  care  for  and  develop  his 


COLLEGES  RUIN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOLS      211 

body  eagerly  if  he  be  permitted  to  do  so  naturally 
through  gymnastics,  manual  and  industrial  work, 
through  making  things  and  building  things  in  free 
companionship  with  other  boys.  He  will  suffer 
gladly  even  such  fools  as  he  regards  the  Greeks  and 
Trojans  if  he  be  made  to  see  that  they  were  real 
people  who  once  lived  and  with  whom  our  modern 
problems  are  all  intertwined.  He  will  rejoice  in, 
instead  of  hating,  literature,  if  he  be  permitted  to 
plunge  into  it  as  into  a  splendid  bath  of  inspiration, 
instead  of  being  required  to  dig  into  it,  as  with  a 
muck-rake,  for  the  worthless  odds  and  ends  of  a 
pedantic  examination.  He  will  find  nature  the  great 
storehouse  of  inspiration  that  she  is  if  he  be  allowed 
to  investigate  through  this  science  and  through  that, 
instead  of  being  compelled  to  perform  forty  set  ex- 
periments in  fifteen  weeks.  He  will  like,  instead  of 
hating,  mathematics  if,  all  the  time,  he  is  being 
shown  how  its  divisions  fit  into  one  another  and  into 
daily  life  and  work.  And  he  will  perform  almost 
any  kind  of  necessary  drudgery  provided  he  be  con- 
vinced that,  by  doing  this  drudgery  well,  he  is  laying 
the  lasting  foundations  of  his  future  career. 

For  their  own  sakes  and  for  that  of  the  helpless 
children  under  them,  the  great  body  of  secondary 
teachers  should  say  to  the  colleges : 

"For  these  many  years  we  have  adapted  our 


2i2          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

standards  and  our  courses  to  your  entrance  require- 
ments, set  with  no  knowledge  and  with  no  thought 
of  what  we  could  or  ought  to  accomplish.  Although 
we  have  tried  to  carry  on  special  courses  for  those 
pupils  who  were  not  to  go  to  college,  your  demands 
have  really  set  the  pace  and  created  the  atmosphere 
for  all  our  schools.  Our  boys  and  girls  have  had  to 
be  single-molded  to  your  arbitrary  standards;  in 
future,  your  standards  must  be  many-molded  to 
our  boys  and  girls.  We  propose  to  develop  every 
pupil  in  the  way  that  is  best  for  him  alone;  your  work, 
like  ours,  must  be  diversified  and  humanized  to  carry 
along  the  same  process  of  development;  therefore 
your  examinations  —  or,  better  still,  your  standards 
of  achievement  to  be  determined  otherwise  than 
through  examinations  —  must  be  made  wide  in  range 
and  flexible  in  combination  so  that  our  boys  and 
girls  may  keep  their  thoughts  solely  upon  our  re- 
quirements, not  mainly  upon  yours." 

Not  until  they  have  thrown  off  the  incubus  of  the 
present  absurd  college  requirements  will  the  high 
schools  be  able  to  begin  to  work  out  the  problem 
—  the  hardest  in  education  —  which  is  especially 
theirs.  That  problem  is  how  to  educate  children 
to  be  true  citizens  and  effective  workers;  for,  in 
the  four  years  of  the  high-school  course,  the  great 
development  out  of  irresponsibility  into  responsi- 


COLLEGES  RUIN  THE  HIGH  SCHOOLS      213 

bility  ought  to  have  taken  place;  and  the  child,  sub- 
ject to  others*  wills  and  swayed  by  others'  thoughts, 
should  have  grown,  during  those  four  years,  into 
the  young  man  with  his  own  will  active,  his  own 
thoughts  busy,  his  own  powers  disciplined,  ready  and 
eager  for  the  splendid  fight  of  life.  Until  the  high 
schools  have  begun  to  make  themselves  a  powerful 
social  force  instead  of  a  mill  for  examination  grinding, 
they  will  continue  to  fail  to  meet  the  real  and  crying 
needs  of  the  community. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS 

MOST  savage  races  surround  the  physical 
comingof  ageof  their  young  men  with  elab- 
orate and  striking  ceremonies.  Through 
solemn  rites  and  severe  tests  of  his  endurance  the 
youth  is  transferred  from  the  tutelage  of  women  to 
that  of  men,  and  is  by  them  inducted  into  virile  ways. 
The  Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  the  Feudal  peoples, 
inheriting  these  primitive  ceremonies,  softened  them 
in  form,  but  left  them  practically  unchanged  in 
substance.  Our  ancestors,  from  that  composite  of 
actualities,  the  typical  savage,  to  that  poetic  myth, 
King  Arthur,  properly  regarded  puberty  as  a  great 
event  and  adolescence  as  a  time  for  solemn  teaching 
by  those  highest  in  spiritual  rank. 

We,  however,  with  a  physical  and  moral  life  far 
more  complex  than  that  of  our  savage  or  mediaeval 
forebears,  leave  this  tremendous  physiological  change 
and  its  mental  and  moral  sequelae  to  the  blind  guid- 
ance of  chance,  viewing  with  indifference  or  even 
with  ribaldry  this  "second  birth"  of  the  child,  and 

214 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       215 

abandoning  the  nascent  man,  at  the  best  to  the  tui- 
tion of  unmarried  women,  and  at  the  worst  to  the 
teaching  of  foul-minded  loafers. 

Comparing  the  elaborate  moral  training  of  the 
feudal  page  or  even  of  the  youthful  savage  (remem- 
bering, of  course,  that  ethical  standards  are  always 
relative  and  always  in  flux)  with  the  almost  purely 
memoriter  teaching  of  the  modern  high-school  boy, 
one  is  inclined  to  ask  if  we  have  not  forsaken  the 
substance  for  the  shadow  in  educational  things.  In 
many,  if  not  in  most,  schoolrooms  have  we  not  for- 
gotten —  what  even  the  aborigines  knew  —  that  the 
most  immediate  and  serious  of  school  problems  is 
that  of  moral  discipline?  Have  we  not  overlooked 
the  plain  fact  that  the  main  energies  of  society,  so 
far  as  they  relate  to  the  high-school  boy,  should  be 
concentred,  not  on  preparing  him  for  a  set  of  college 
examinations,  not  on  getting  him  ready  to  earn  his 
living,  but  on  carrying  him  safely  through  the  most 
serious  and  far-reaching  evolution  of  his  entire  life? 
The  donning  of  long  trousers,  viewed  as  a  symbol 
of  physiological  and  moral  change,  is  really  the  most 
significant  event  in  life. 

To  the  mere  hearer  of  lessons  all  schoolboys  — 
except  for  their  physiognomies  or  their  degrees  of 
cleanliness  —  are  substantially  alike.  And  it  is  true 
that  the  average  boy,  ranging  from  the  incorrigible 


216  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

"dig"  to  the  incorrigible  mischief-maker,  does  ex- 
hibit certain  fundamental  qualities  common  to  the 
entire  adolescent  tribe.  During  the  whole  or  a  part 
of  the  period  between  thirteen  and  twenty  all  normal, 
healthy  boys  present,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  the 
following  characteristics : 

(1)  Great    physical    activity,    alternating   with 
periods   of   marked   physical   lassitude,    misnamed 
"laziness." 

(2)  Unusual  physical  and  mental  restlessness. 

(3)  A  marked  spirit  of  self-assertion,  of  combat- 
iveness,  of  "contrariness." 

(4)  A  sudden  increase   in    the    social    instinct, 
developing   into   what    has    well    been    called    the 
"gang-spirit,"  the  herding  of  boys  into  predatory 
or  mischief-making  "gangs." 

(5)  An    intense    curiosity,    combined    with    an 
extraordinary  reserve;  a  bluffness  of  manner  that 
conceals,  however,  an  unusual  secretiveness. 

(6)  A  rapid  awakening  of  the  consciousness  of 
individuality,  a  sudden  realization  of  the  Ego,  which 
sometimes  results  in  intense  selfishness  and  almost 
always   manifests   itself  in   heedlessness   and   self- 
absorption,  and 

(7)  As  a  result  of  all  these  other  things,  a  notable 
phase,  greater  or  less  in  duration,  of  religious  ecstasy. 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       21; 

These  common  and  basic  characteristics,  however, 
appear  in  such  differing  degrees  and  in  such  a  variety 
of  combinations  that  they  cannot  be  dealt  with  in 
the  mass  or  by  preordained  methods  and  rules.  Each 
boy  is  a  problem  by  himself;  and  the  chief  business 
of  any  community  is,  through  its  parents,  its  teachers, 
and  its  citizens  in  general,  to  bring  to  a  fortunate 
solution  the  particular  equation  of  each  separate 
youth. 

Taking  up  these  fundamental  phases  in  detail,  the 
first  characteristic  —  great  physical  activity  —  is 
made  necessary,  of  course,  by  the  rapid  development 
of  the  youth,  a  growth  that  demands  much  food, 
that  creates  much  waste,  and  that  necessitates  ex- 
traordinary physical  exertion  in  order  for  the  food  to 
be  assimilated  and  the  wastes  to  be  thrown  off.  All 
this,  however,  means  nervous  strain,  nervous  ex- 
haustion, and,  in  too  many  cases,  nervous  derange- 
ment if  the  lassitude  which  indicates  diminution  of 
nervous  vitality  is  treated  as  mere  laziness.  To  meet 
these  conditions  the  boy  must  have  an  abundance 
of  the  right  sort  of  exercise,  in  the  open  air;  but  this 
exercise  must  be  so  regulated  that,  in  his  youthful 
exuberance,  he  does  not  permanently  exhaust  his 
nervous  force.  And  as  brain  exhaustion  is  even  more 
dangerous,  we  must  be  ever  on  the  lookout  to  see  if 
schoolboy  laziness  be  not  the  danger-signal  put  out 


218  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

by  a  tired  brain  to  warn  against  overpressure  in  the 
school.  Were  girls  under  consideration,  there  would 
be  need  of  even  more  emphatic  warning. 

This  question  of  nervous  strain  and  nervous  ex- 
haustion is,  of  course,  intimately  connected  with 
what  I  have  called  the  second  characteristic  of  the 
growing  boy,  that  physical  and  mental  restlessness 
(mark  the  distinction  between  restlessness  and  ac- 
tivity) which  is  due,  in  great  measure,  to  sexual 
development.  The  results  of  this  restlessness,  in 
peevishness,  in  impertinence,  in  inattention,  in  the 
not-seldom  appalling  obscenity  of  schoolboys,  and 
in  physical  acts  which  sometimes  do  lasting  damage, 
constitute  one  of  the  most  serious  problems  with 
which  teachers  and  parents  are  called  upon  to  deal. 
It  is  a  pathological  phenomenon  for  which  one  must 
be  always  on  the  watch,  and  against  which  one  must 
be  ever  guarding  by  giving  the  boy  a  wide  variety 
of  absorbing  interests,  by  seeing  to  it  that  his  idle 
hours  are  few  and  far  between,  by  making  him  so 
soundly  tired  every  night  that  he  goes  to  sleep  in- 
stantly and  stays  asleep  till  he  is  dragged  from  his 
pillow;  above  all,  by  keeping  his  stomach  well  filled 
with  digestible,  not  overstimulating,  food,  and  his 
heart  and  brain  well  nurtured  with  moral  ideals  and 
lofty  aspirations. 

The    third    characteristic  —  the    spirit    of    self- 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       219 

assertion,  of  desire  to  be  a  man  —  shows  itself  in 
well-known  forms.  Physically  it  exhibits  itself  in 
punching  other  boys'  heads,  in  sparring,  wrestling, 
and  a  general  puppyishness  that  often  stretches  one's 
patience  to  the  breaking  point.  Mentally  it  shows 
itself  in  covert  or  open  defiance  of  parental  and 
school  authority,  in  a  variety  of  "larks"  and  petty 
rebellions  needing  careful  handling,  and  in  the  setting 
up  of  an  ethical  code  that  may  or  may  not  be  like 
ours,  but  which  the  average  boy  will  obey  even 
though  he  incur  severe  punishment  for  doing  so. 
Another  form  of  this  self-assertion  is  the  assumption 
of  the  so-called  manly  habits  of  swearing,  smoking, 
drinking,  etc. 

But  this  self-assertiveness,  this  setting-up  01  a 
moral  code  of  his  own,  this  assuming  of  a  manliness 
that  is  new  and  strange  to  him,  would  be  impossible 
to  the  ordinary  boy  if  he  had  to  do  it  individually. 
The  only  way  in  which  he  can  bolster  up  his  courage 
is  to  lean  on  other  boys  like-minded  with  himself. 
Hence  arises  the  "gang,"  the  herding  of  boys  to- 
gether under  one  or  more  leaders,  the  strengthening, 
through  this  mutual  support,  of  whatever  good,  and 
also  of  whatever  evil,  instincts  each  of  the  individuals 
may  have.  In  this  connection  every  one  having  to  do 
with  youth  ought  to  make  use  of  that  force  so  potent 
for  good  and  evil  in  the  world,  the  spirit  of  the  crowd. 


220  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

A  fifth  characteristic  of  the  growing  boy  is  intense 
curiosity  united  with  extraordinary  reserve,  a  show 
of  bluntness  that  is  really  a  mask  for  great  secretive- 
ness.  Especially  is  he  curious  about  questions  of  life 
and  human  relationship,  for  he  dimly  feels  that  these 
are  soon  vitally  to  concern  him.  I  am  convinced 
that  the  boy  of  even  ordinary  intellect  and  imagina- 
tion is  continually  speculating  about  life  in  his  own 
queer,  ignorant  way;  and,  since  his  experience  is 
limited,  he  is  free  to  build  up,  and  does  build  up, 
the  most  extraordinary  explanations  of  the  simplest 
phenomena.  Having  seen  so  many  (to  him)  miracu- 
lous things  in  his  short  career,  he  has  no  difficulty 
in  imagining  other  even  more  marvellous  happenings. 
Like  those  Europeans,  when  the  rest  of  the  world  was 
practically  unknown,  who  found  no  trouble  in  be- 
lieving accounts  of  monsters  and  of  "men  whose 
heads  do  grow  beneath  their  shoulders,"  this  boy  is 
unastonished  by  almost  any  wonder.  As  a  result 
many  youths  entertain,  even  up  to  manhood,  the 
most  outlandish  explanations  of  the  most  common- 
place affairs.  A  word  would  have  set  them  right; 
but,  unfortunately,  it  is  very  seldom  that  the  en- 
lightening word  happens  to  be  spoken.  So,  not 
being  sure  of  themselves,  and  having  found  out, 
through  bitter  experience,  that  their  elders  are  only 
too  ready  to  laugh  at  their  mistakes  and  to  ridicule 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       221 

their  most  innocent  questions;  filled,  moreover,  with 
the  desire  to  appear  as  experienced  men  of  the  world, 
these  boys  keep  their  remarkable  speculations  to 
themselves  and  assume,  generally  with  great  suc- 
cess, an  air  of  supreme  indifference  to  matters  about 
which,  in  fact,  they  are  consumed  with  curiosity. 

Another  reason,  it  seems  to  me,  for  the  secretive- 
ness  of  boys  is  their  extreme,  often  their  abnormal, 
modesty.  To  those  who  have  had  much  to  do  with 
boys,  it  may  seem  paradoxical  to  call  the  average 
foul-speaking  urchin  modest;  nevertheless,  I  believe 
that  —  of  course  with  many  exceptions  —  the  aver- 
age boy,  because  of  his  greater  immaturity,  because 
of  his  inherent  chivalry,  is  more  modest,  more  sensi- 
tive, more  horror-struck  at  real  indecency  than  is  the 
average  young  girl. 

After  having  asserted  that  this  high-school  period 
is  characterized  by  the  gang  spirit,  it  seems  like  a 
contradiction  to  speak  of  it  also  as  a  time  of  indi- 
viduality and  of  self-realization.  The  contradiction, 
however,  is  only  apparent.  There  is  no  clear  cogni- 
tion of  the  Ego  in  childhood  until  the  development 
of  the  conscious  will;  as  this  time  usually  just  pre- 
cedes the  high-school  period,  it  is  clear  that  there 
must  be  a  strong  development  then  of  the  sense  of 
individuality.  The  "gang"  arises  because  that  Ego 
wishes  to  strengthen  itself  by  associating  with  other 


222  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

individualities  at  a  similar  stage  of  development; 
and  this  awakening  of  the  Ego  is  the  golden  hour  for 
making  something  out  of  the  boy,  for  setting  him 
straight  on  whatever  may  be  the  best  road  toward 
his  highest  usefulness. 

Having,  then,  this  self-realization,  this  nervous 
restlessness,  this  curiosity,  this  love  of  the  mysterious, 
this  readiness  to  accept  the  miraculous,  this  tingling 
of  his  whole  being  from  the  tremendous  changes  go- 
ing on  within;  possessing,  moreover,  this  gang  spirit 
which  makes  the  boy  yearn  for  the  support  of  others, 
it  follows  that  there  must  come  to  most  youth,  as 
indeed  there  does  at  this  time,  some  form  of  moral 
ecstasy.  This  usually  takes  the  shape  of  a  so-called 
religious  experience  in  that  church  with  which, 
through  his  parents  or  friends,  the  boy  may  be 
brought  into  association.  This  phase  is  so  generally 
looked  for  that  churches  make  their  preparations  for 
bringing  young  men  and  women  within  their  in- 
fluence just  at  this  time;  and  most  fortunate  it  is 
that  there  stand  at  the  gate,  as  the  boy  goes  from 
childhood  to  manhood,  these  priests  and  ministers 
eager  to  meet  him  and  lead  him  within  the  shelter 
and  influence  of  organized  morality.  If  this  religious 
phase  in  youth  prove  genuine  and  permanent,  it  is 
the  most  fortunate  experience  through  which  he 
could  have  gone.  Even  though  transient,  it  may  do 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       223 

real  and  lasting  good.  There  is  danger,  however,  as 
with  all  deep  emotions,  that  reaction  will  follow  and 
that  the  youth  will  be  left  emotionally  sated,  and 
disgusted,  therefore,  for  the  rest  of  his  life  with 
religion  and  all  that  it  implies. 

It  is  clear,  then,  that  in  this  transition  period  we 
have  the  boy,  physically,  mentally  and  morally,  in 
the  most  susceptible  and  most  impressionable,  the 
most  teachable,  and  consequently  in  the  most  mo- 
mentous, era  of  his  entire  life.  Unfortunately,  how- 
ever, he  is  almost  as  susceptible  to  evil  as  to  good,  and 
bad  examples  make  just  as  strong  impressions  as  good 
ones.  Teaching,  therefore,  if  it  be  wrongly  done, 
will  hurt  this  teachable  boy  far  more  than  it  will 
help.  At  this  time,  more  than  ever  before  or  after 
in  his  life,  the  boy  needs  help  and  explanation,  needs 
sympathy  and  understanding,  needs,  as  the  Greeks 
so  wisely  saw,  the  firm,  kind  guidance  of  an  older 
man.  Ignorant,  weak,  bewildered  by  the  vast  life 
which  is  opening  before  him,  the  boy  may  be  swept 
off  his  feet  and  engulfed  in  immorality  and  sin  almost 
before  he  knows  what  sin  and  immorality  are;  cer- 
tainly before  he  has  any  conception  of  their  awful 
and  inevitable  punishment.  To  make  no  provision, 
therefore,  for  moral  training  at  this  crucial  time  is  to 
commit  an  unpardonable  sin  against  humanity. 

Having  examined  the  first  part  of  our  problem, 


224  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

the  boy  himself,  let  us  look  at  the  second  element, 
the  boy's  environment.  That  part  of  the  problem 
has  three  factors  —  society  in  general,  the  limited 
society  called  home,  and  the  artificial  society  called 
school.  As  to  society  in  general,  a  glance  back  into 
our  own  lives  is  sufficient  to  indicate  what  a  be- 
wildering impression  its  moral  and  social  aspects 
make  upon  the  growing  boy.  It  is  an  effect  just  as 
confusing  to  him  as  are  physical  phenomena  to  the 
newborn  child.  The  infant  has  to  leant  the  leading 
facts  of  physical  existence  slowly  and  carefully, 
under  the  protection  and  leading  of  his  mother  or 
nurse.  In  very  much  the  same  way  the  boy  has  to 
learn  the  facts  and  truths  of  moral  existence;  and 
there  is  just  as  much  need  here,  as  in  the  other  case, 
of  guidance.  For  the  social  order  is  carried  on  for 
men  and  women,  not  for  boys  and  girls;  and  if  the 
latter  get  contamination  from  it,  the  fault  lies  with 
those  around  them,  not  with  society  itself.  The 
churches,  the  Sunday  schools,  the  Christian  asso- 
ciations established  for  the  purpose  of  helping  these 
helpless  learners  in  the  school  of  life,  do,  of  course, 
much  good  work;  but  society,  in  its  ordinary  course, 
is  not  managed  by  these  moral  agencies.  When  one 
speaks  of  society  he  means  the  streets,  the  shops, 
the  newspapers,  the  theatres,  the  thousand  social 
forces  which  appeal  to  the  boy,  not  simply  on  Sun- 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       225 

day,  not  alone  on  the  lecture  evening  of  the  Y.  M. 
C.  A.,  not  merely  when  some  zealous  man  gets  hold 
of  him  and  gives  him  an  hour  of  good  advice  —  they 
are  forces  that  appeal  to  him,  that  mightily  interest 
him,  that  rapidly  educate  him  during  every  waking 
hour  of  the  full  seven  days.  None  can  remake 
society  in  a  year  or  even  in  a  generation.  It  must 
be  taken  about  as  one  finds  it,  and,  as  an  educational 
agency,  one  finds  it,  as  a  rule,  pretty  bad.  Certainly 
the  newspapers,  which  are,  cry  out  against  them  as 
we  may,  a  fairly  just  mirror  of  society,  do  not  give 
any  great  moral  uplift.  Certainly  the  streets  of  a 
city  after  dark  are  not  model  schools  of  ethics.  And 
there  are  few  more  conspicuous  perverters  of  youth 
than  the  average  country  store.  Indeed,  mutatis 
mutandis,  a  rural  community  is  a  more  dangerous 
place  for  a  growing  boy  than  is  a  city  street. 

These  aspects  of  social  life  are  so  familiar  to  adults 
that  we  no  longer  really  see  them;  having  long  ago 
learned  their  littleness  and  folly  in  comparison  with 
what  is  worth  while  in  life,  they  have  almost  no  in- 
fluence upon  us,  we  have  acquired,  through  ex- 
perience, such  a  nice  sense  of  ethical  values  that  this 
flaunting  of  nastiness  and  vice  leaves  us  substantially 
untouched.  But  how  is  it  with  the  developing  boy 
who  is  as  ignorant  of  real  moral  values  as  the  new- 
born infant  is  of  true  physical  relations?  How 


226  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

puzzling,  how  morally  topsy-turvy,  how  suggestive 
of  all  manner  of  queer  conclusions  this  Vanity  Fair 
around  the  boy  must  be!  How  strange  to  him  it  is 
we  cannot  know,  excepting  as  we  may  be  able  to 
grope  back  into  our  own  memories;  and  how  he  inter- 
prets it  he  never  will  tell.  Knowing,  however,  the 
general  characteristics  of  this  time  of  life,  we  may 
make  an  attempt  to  guess.  Physically  exuberant  as 
the  average  healthy  boy  is,  the  accounts  in  the  news- 
papers of  prize  fights,  of  those  larger  prize  fights 
called  battles,  of  everything  that  concerns  the  so- 
called  strenuous  life,  will  interest  him  immensely; 
and,  under  some  sort  of  guidance  as  to  what  is  manly 
and  what  is  not,  it  is  very  well  that  he  should  be  so 
interested.  But  that  searching  restlessness  of  his, 
that  strange  pruriency  of  his  time  of  life,  will  find 
other  things  in  those  papers,  will  hear  other  things 
in  men's  conversation,  will  seek  out  things  in  classic 
literature  that  his  ignorance  (or  his  worse  than  igno- 
rance picked  up  from  dirty-minded  companions) 
will  turn  and  twist  and  magnify  and  speculate  upon 
until  there  may  spring  up  in  his  mind,  like  some 
horrid  fungus,  such  a  mass  of  vague  obscenity  as 
will  gradually  drive  out  all  better  thoughts.  This 
garbage  of  social  existence  means  so  little  to  us  that 
it  is  difficult  to  realize  how  its  stench  may  fill  the 
nostrils  and  stupefy  the  morals  of  those  silent  boys 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       227 

who  seem  to  us  so  innocent  and  so  indifferent  to  evil 
happenings. 

It  is  evident,  then,  that  not  much  good  education 
for  the  boy  —  in  the  real  meaning  of  education  — 
can  be  expected  from  the  community  at  large.  It  is 
true  that  society,  by  its  demands  upon  him,  teaches 
him,  in  a  rough  and  ready  fashion,  social  manners; 
by  knocking  him  about,  it  gives  him  self-reliance, 
ready  wit,  and  a  kind  of  savoir  faire.  Of  moral 
education,  however,  it  will  give  him  very  little 
indeed;  lucky  for  him  if  he  does  not  get  from  it,  in- 
stead, an  m-moral  education.  For  his  ethical  train- 
ing the  boy  must  look  to  his  home,  to  his  school  and, 
if  he  have  one,  to  his  church. 

So  we  come  to  the  second  factor  of  the  second 
element  of  our  problem  —  the  boy's  home.  Of  the 
uplift  of  the  atmosphere  of  a  good  home  one  cannot 
say  too  much  in  eulogy;  but  how  large  a  proportion 
•of  homes,  even  in  that  great  middle-class  which  is 
the  heart  and  soul  of  the  country,  can  be  called,  in 
that  sense,  good  homes?  And  in  how  many,  even 
of  the  good  homes,  are  the  peculiar  wants  of  the 
growing  lad  in  any  great  degree  met?  The  boy 
needs,  as  has  been  said,  much  outdoor  exercise, 
judiciously  supervised  in  order  that  he  may  not  over- 
tax his  nervous  system;  but  what  parent  knows 
much,  if  anything,  about  the  son's  sports  and  games  ? 


228  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

The  father  will  probably  encourage,  the  mother  will 
sighingly  acquiesce  in,  football,  baseball,  swimming, 
and  kindred  exercises;  but  how  and  with  whom  the 
son  follows  those  sports,  whether  he  is  developing  his 
body  rightly  or  wrongly,  whether  or  not  he  even 
knows  how  to  play  so  that  sport  will  be  one  of  the 
best  parts  of  his  education,  the  mother  wots  little 
and  the  father  less. 

Again,  the  physical  and  mental  restlessness  of  a 
pubescent  boy  needs  to  be  stilled  by  giving  him  a 
host  of  different  interests  that  will  divert  his  mind 
and  absorb  his  attention;  but  do  many  fathers  and 
mothers  see  in  the  collecting  mania,  in  the  printing- 
press  mania,  in  the  trading  mania,  in  the  forty  other 
manias  of  this  period  of  life  anything  but  another 
instance  of  boyish  foolishness  and  fondness  for  mak- 
ing a  "clutter?"  Collecting,  however,  and  all  the 
rest  of  the  supposedly  useless  channels  into  which  a 
growing  boy's  interests  run  are  plainly  beneficent 
provisions  of  an  all-wise  Providence. 

Furthermore,  how  does  the  average  parent  —  even 
the  good  one  —  deal  with  the  assertiveness,  the 
bumptiousness,  the  "contrariness"  of  the  pubescent 
boy,  all  of  these  attributes  being  the  clearest  signals 
of  his  struggle  out  of  childhood  into  manhood?  It 
is  to  be  feared  that  to  most  households  the  boy's 
noise,  his  muddy  boots,  his  hectoring  manner,  his 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       229 

tendency  to  fall  over  himself  and  everything  else, 
his  heedlessness,  his  self-absorption,  are  so  painfully 
conspicuous  that  the  real,  loving,  yearning,  shrinking 
boy-soul  behind  it  all  is  but  seldom  recognized. 
Therefore,  most  families  breathe  a  sigh  of  relief  when, 
after  silently  gulping  his  food  or  loudly  tormenting 
his  sisters,  the  poor,  misunderstood  hobbledehoy 
slams  the  front  door  and  goes  to  join  his  own  par- 
ticular gang,  there  to  be  led,  by  some  more  masterful 
youth,  into  simple  mischief  or  into  serious  evil. 

As  to  the  intense  curiosity  of  the  developing  boy, 
not  simply  in  regard  to  those  topics  foolishly  called 
forbidden,  but  also  concerning  all  the  great  funda- 
mental facts  of  life,  how  fully  do  even  conscientious 
fathers  and  mothers  do  their  duty  along  these  im- 
portant lines  ?  Half  the  misery  and  sin  in  the  world 
comes  from  parental  ignorance,  parental  reticence, 
parental  cowardice  in  regard  to  matters  of  infinitely 
more  moment  than  all  the  Latin  and  history  and  al- 
gebra lessons  in  the  boy's  whole  curriculum.  It  is 
difficult  to  talk  with  a  boy  about  these  intimate 
questions;  it  is  impossible  to  do  so  unless  for  long 
years  one  has  been  getting  that  boy's  confidence  and 
winning  his  close  comradeship.  To  keep  aloof  from 
a  boy  for  fourteen  years  and  then  to  talk  to  him 
about  such  matters  is  simply  to  disgust  him.  One 
must  have  begun  to  prepare  for  that  conversation 


230          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

at  least  twelve  years  before.  But  it  is  better  to  run 
the  risk  even  of  misunderstanding  than  to  play  that 
cowardly  part  which  it  is  to  be  feared  most  parents 
take  of  letting  the  boy  learn  from  the  streets,  of  let- 
ting him  painfully  and  distortedly  puzzle  out  from 
his  own  observation,  or  of  letting  him  remain  in  a 
sort  of  prurient  ignorance  which  they  are  pleased  to 
regard  as  innocence. 

The  religious  crisis  of  this  transition  period  is  a 
difficult  and  obscure  problem.  The  churches  are 
trying  to  solve  it;  of  late  years  their  efforts  seem  to 
have  been  wiser  and,  therefore,  more  successful. 
But  they  will  not  accomplish  all  they  can  until  they 
find  means  of  inducing  stronger  men  to  take  up 
theology  and  until  they  can  devise  ways  of  giving 
their  teachers  of  youth,  whether  in  the  pulpit  or  in 
the  Sunday  school,  as  complete  a  training  in  the 
principles  and  practices  of  education  as  is  given  to 
the  very  best  teachers  in  the  secular  schools.  It  is  a 
difficult  science  and  art,  this  teaching  of  algebra  and 
history;  how  vastly  more  difficult  is  the  teaching, 
with  any  hope  of  results,  of  the  eternal  truths  of 
righteous  living. 

It  would  appear,  then,  that  of  the  three  agencies 
most  nearly  concerned  in  the  education  of  the  high- 
school  boy,  the  community  can  do  little  good,  and 
may  do  very  much  bad,  teaching.  It  would  seem, 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       231 

too,  that  until  parents  have  grown  wiser  and  more 
conscientious,  they  cannot  or  will  not  do  a  hundredth 
part  of  what  they  might  and  ought  toward  helping 
the  boy  rightly  over  this  most  difficult  period  of  a 
man's  whole  life.  Therefore,  as  usual,  it  devolves 
upon  the  already  overburdened  school  to  do  what  it 
can  to  solve  this  most  important  problem  of  human 
education. 

One  cannot  begin  the  moral  training  of  boys  in  the 
high  school  if  that  training  has  not  been  properly 
started  far  down  in  the  lower  schools.  If  a  boy  have 
not  sound  instincts  and  tolerably  clear  notions  of 
right  and  wrong  at  fourteen,  it  is  hopeless  for  the 
secondary  school  to  try  then  to  get  much  hold  upon 
him.  It  will  be  agreed,  too,  that  the  high-school 
teacher  can  do  little  or  nothing  in  this  direction  unless 
the  number  of  pupils  whom  he  is  to  influence  is  so 
small  that  he  can  know  every  boy  way  down  to  the 
bottom  of  that  pupil's  soul.  Moreover,  since  the 
streets  are  not  good  places  in  which  to  obtain  moral 
education,  since  the  boy's  home,  as  a  rule,  is  only  a 
little  more  efficient  than  the  streets,  it  follows  that 
the  school  should  hold  him  as  long  and  as  steadily 
as  it  possibly  can.  For  that  reason  I  would  advocate 
all-day  sessions  for  the  high  school  with  at  least  a 
half-day's  work  on  Saturday.  In  this  lengthened 
day,  however,  there  should  be  many  recesses;  its 


232  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

afternoons  should  be  given  up  to  manual  work, 
drawing,  gymnastics,  and  similar  kinds  of  education; 
and  in  school,  not  at  home,  the  boy  should  each  day 
learn  his  lessons  for  the  next.  There  is  no  better 
training  for  the  growing  will  than  the  right  learning 
of  a  hard  lesson;  there  is  no  more  harmful  influence, 
physically,  mentally  and  morally,  upon  a  boy  than 
that  which  comes  from  sitting  late  into  the  evening 
over  a  task  that  he  does  not  understand,  that  he  has 
not  the  slightest  idea  how  to  attack,  and  that  arouses 
in  him  all  the  evil  forces  of  rebellion,  of  a  wandering 
mind,  of  an  unhappy  solitude.  Let  the  school  be 
the  main  business  of  the  boy's  life;  but,  like  every 
wise  business  man,  let  him  leave  his  cares  behind 
him  when  he  shuts  his  desk. 

Let  us  now  return  to  the  main  characteristics  of  the 
growing  boy  and  see  what  suggestions  they  may 
hold  toward  the  solution  of  this  problem  of  moral 
education  in  the  secondary  school.  First,  there  was 
a  boy's  great  physical  activity.  This  means  that  we 
must  have  pure  air  in  the  schoolroom  and  plenty  of 
it;  that  we  must  have  frequent  recesses,  each  long 
enough  for  the  boy  to  get  out  of  doors  and  run;  that 
we  may  find  it  to  be  the  teacher's  duty  (since  parents 
will  not  assume  it)  to  advise  concerning  and  in  a 
•measure  to  oversee  the  pupils'  games.  It  certainly 
means  that  we  must  make  sure  that  every  boy  among 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       233 

them  exercises  just  as  hard  and  just  as  much  as  his 
individual  constitution  may  permit.  As  to  the  lassi- 
tude characteristic  of  this  time  of  life,  it  should  be 
carefully  watched  so  that,  if  there  be  nerve  strain, 
the  cause  of  it  may  be  discovered  and,  if  possible, 
removed. 

Secondly,  as  to  the  restlessness  of  the  growing  boy, 
this  restlessness  which  is  due  not  so  much  to  growing 
muscles  as  to  dawning  puberty:  does  its  presence 
not  suggest  several  things?  First,  that  we  deal 
cautiously  with  inattention,  with  irritability,  with 
the  "fidgets";  secondly,  that  we  do  everything  in 
our  power  to  give  every  boy  many  and  wide  inter- 
ests, both  in  and  out  of  school;  and,  thirdly,  does  not 
this  need  of  absorption  in  things  outside  himself 
point  straight  toward  the  elective  system  in  the 
high  school,  a  system  that  will  permit  each  boy, 
within  supervised  limits,  to  follow  those  topics  in 
which  he  is  really  interested  ?  Such  a  system,  right- 
ly carried  on,  is  one  of  the  greatest  of  moral  safe- 
guards. 

Next,  as  to  those  extremely  disagreeable  qualities 
in  youth  —  his  self-assertiveness,  his  arrogance,  his 
scorn  of  his  teacher  and  of  everybody  else,  his  "can- 
tankerousness."  These  sharp-cornered  stones  of 
his  character  which  we  builders  would  so  like  to 
reject,  may  be  made,  on  the  contrary,  the  very  head 


234  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

of  the  corner  in  the  boy's  education.  For  it  is  these 
qualities  which  will  most  quickly  respond  to  any 
moral  appeal.  If  that  appeal  be  wrongly  made, 
these  qualities  will  all  rise  up  in  rebellion  against  it; 
if  it  be  rightly  made,  every  one  will  be  a  stout  ally 
to  make  the  work  of  the  teacher  fruitful  and  endur- 
ing. If  the  boy  show  the  self-assertion  which  he 
calls  manliness,  then  let  him  prove  himself  a  man 
by  cultivating  really  manly  qualities.  If  he  love 
argument,  argue  with  him,  but  in  the  Socratic  man- 
ner, so  that  he  may  prove  out  of  his  own  mouth 
the  truth.  If  he  would  be  masterful,  overbearing, 
pugnacious,  put  him  in  charge  of  weaker  or  smaller 
boys,  making  him  responsible  for  their  safety  and 
right  doing.  Unknown  to  him  those  wards  of  his 
will  protect  him  far  more  then  he  will  them. 

As  to  moral  teaching  in  the  narrower  sense  in 
which  it  is  generally  used,  much  more  can  be  done 
than  would  at  first  appear.  The  reading  of  passages 
from  the  Bible,  if  wisely  selected,  can  do  something; 
the  utilization  of  history  lessons,  literature  lessons, 
Latin,  Greek,  and  French  lessons  for  skilful  comment 
(not  preaching  comment,  but  healthy,  manly  talk) 
can  do  very  much;  and,  especially  in  the  later  years 
of  the  secondary  school,  the  master  can  find  many 
occasions  for  a  serious  word  on  questions  of  morals 
with  this  boy  alone,  with  that  group  of  three  or  four, 


THE  DONNING  OF  LONG  TROUSERS       235 

or  with  a  whole  class  which  has  been  put  into  solemn 
mood  by  some  local  or  national  calamity. 

But  how  can  teachers,  with  their  thousand  other 
duties,  get  at  boys  so  as  to  have  any  such  influence 
upon  them  as  has  been  suggested?  With  schools  of 
such  size  and  with  classes  of  such  numbers  as  the 
modern  school  presents,  how  can  a  teacher  exert  a 
personal  influence  upon  every  pupil?  Fortunately 
that  is  just  what  he  has  no  need  to  do.  The  "gang" 
spirit,  the  tendency  of  boys  of  that  age  to  set  up  a 
moral  code  of  their  own  which  they  will  obey  almost 
to  the  very  death,  gives  to  the  teacher  a  means  of 
dealing  with  youth  which  manifolds  his  resources. 
The  only  essentials  are  that  a  master  should  have 
so  few  boys  as  to  be  able  to  know  them  all,  and  that 
he  should  know  how  to  fathom,  as  far  as  possible, 
each  boy's  character.  That  knowledge  gained,  he 
can  then  devote  himself  mainly  to  influencing  the 
"gang"  leaders.  These  may  be  a  dozen;  they  are 
more  likely  to  be  only  four  or  five;  often  there  will 
be  but  one.  Whether  one  or  ten,  let  the  teacher  get 
those  leaders  attached  to  him  with  hooks  of  steel,  let 
him  fill  them  with  the  spirit  that  he  wants  the  school 
to  have,  let  him  lay  out  for  them,  without  their  per- 
ceiving it,  the  code  of  morals  which  he  wants  the 
school  to  obey,  and  the  gang  leaders  are  almost 
certain  to  do  the  rest.  They  have  a  power  over  the 


236  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

other  boys  that  no  teacher  can  ever  hope  to  gain, 
they  have  a  sway  which  makes  the  Czar  of  Russia 
but  a  feeble  potentate,  they  will  and  can  lead  their 
minions  to  the  jaws  of  death.  Having  such  power, 
these  gang  leaders  are  bound  to  lead,  the  rest  of  the 
boys  are  certain  to  be  led.  It  is  for  the  teacher  to 
determine  whether  they  shall  be  led  up  or  down. 
Atmosphere  counts  for  almost  everything  in  a  school, 
and  it  is  these  leaders  who  create  that  atmosphere; 
but  the  good  teacher,  by  a  little  finesse,  a  great  deal 
of  human  charity,  and  a  genuine  love  and  under- 
standing of  boys,  can  make  himself  the  Richelieu 
behind  these  puppet  kings. 


T 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE    MECHANIC    ARTS 

HE  radical,  John  Ball,  back  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  used  to  stir  the  people  with  a 
rhyme  that  was  older  still: 

"  When  Adam  dolve  and  Eve  span 
Who  was  then  the  gentleman?" 


And  to  this  very  hour  every  one  of  us  lives  or  makes 
his  living  by  digging  or  by  spinning  —  that  is,  by 
agriculture  or  the  mechanic  arts.  We  are  accus- 
tomed, it  is  true,  to  divide  the  occupations  of  men, 
roughly,  into  agriculture,  the  mechanic  arts,  busi- 
ness, commerce,  and  the  professions;  but  to-day 
agriculture  is  substantially  dependent  upon  the 
mechanic  arts,  business  and  commerce  are  merely 
the  processes  of  moving  and  exchanging  the  products 
of  those  fundamental  divisions  of  industry,  and,  with 
insignificant  exceptions,  the  professions  rest  upon 
agriculture  or  upon  manufacturing.  Without  ag- 
riculture, the  billions  of  the  world  would  starve  with- 
in a  week;  were  there  no  mechanic  arts,  mankind 

237 


238  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

would  still  be  dwelling  in  caves  and  subsisting  upon 
roots  and  the  flesh  of  such  creatures  as,  with  sticks 
and  stones,  he  might  manage  to  destroy.  What 
man  is  to-day,  physically,  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
primeval  man  (personified  as  Adam)  built  up  the 
science  and  art  of  agriculture;  what  he  is  to-day, 
mentally,  morally,  and  aesthetically,  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  Eve  and  her  descendants  (for  in  primitive 
times  the  mechanic  arts  were  wholly  in  the  hands 
of  women)  have  supplemented  the  bounty  of  nature 
and  the  strength  of  the  human  hand  by  the  cunning 
of  tools  and  the  tireless  energy  of  machinery. 

The  mechanic  arts  divide  themselves,  fundamen- 
tally, into  two  great  classes :  craftsmanship  and  man- 
ufacturing. In  the  former  a  man  fashions  things 
primarily  with  his  hands;  in  the  second  he  is  but  a 
link  in  a  great  chain  of  persons  and  machines  needed 
to  convert  raw  material  into  finished  goods.  In  the 
first  class  the  product  is  counted  by  dozens;  in  the 
other  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dozens.  Crafts- 
manship, of  course,  dates  from  the  very  beginning 
of  mankind  and  was  the  main  thing  differentiating 
men  from  animals.  A  spider  can  fashion  a  wonder- 
ful web  and  a  bird  can  build  a  perfect  nest,  but  in 
all  the  centuries  they  have  not  learned  to  do  any- 
thing else  or  in  any  new  way.  Man,  beginning  with 
a  forked  stick  to  scratch  the  ground  and  a  stone  to 


THE  MECHANIC  ARTS  239 

pound  grain,  went  on  until  he  produced  all  the  com- 
forts and  luxuries  of  modern  civilization. 

As  already  said,  in  primitive  days  the  women  were 
the  craftsmen,  and  the  females  of  the  household 
made  with  their  hands  or  with  rude  implements  all 
that  was  needed  by  the  entire  family.  As  intelli- 
gence progressed,  however,  labor  became  diver- 
sified, for  a  woman  who  devoted  herself  to  one  form 
of  handicraft  could  become,  of  course,  more  expert, 
turning  out  better  things  and  more  of  them  in  a 
given  time.  Gradually,  as  life  grew  to  be  more 
settled,  craftsmanship  became  no  longer  a  family 
affair,  but  a  matter  of  the  community,  men  as  well 
as  women  took  a  share  in  it,  and  there  arose  distinct 
trades  and  occupations.  Thence  followed  the  idea 
of  teaching  a  trade;  and  at  last  rose  trade  monopoly, 
only  those  who  had  been  adopted  and  taught  by  a 
group  of  craftsmen  being  allowed  to  ply  that  par- 
ticular craft.  Out  of  this  came  the  great  trade 
guilds  of  the  thirteenth  to  the  seventeenth  century, 
when  the  mechanic  arts  were  in  the  hands  of  power- 
ful, organized  societies  which  limited  their  members, 
educated  only  a  picked  number  of  youth,  and  finally 
monopolized  practically  all  the  manufacturing  and 
commerce  of  the  then  civilized  world.  These,  like 
other  monopolies,  finally  broke  down  by  their  own 
weight;  but,  bad  as  many  of  their  features  were,  they 


240 

did  at  least  four  things:  they  began  free  government; 
they  proved  that  any  art,  however  humble,  may  be 
made  a  great  art;  they  founded  schools  for  the 
education  of  their  apprentices,  out  of  which  modern 
education  has  very  largely  come;  and  they  estab- 
lished a  system  of  apprenticeship  which  endured 
until  far  into  the  eighteenth  century  and  for  which  all 
educators  are  eagerly  seeking  a  modern  substitute. 
Late  in  that  eighteenth  century,  however,  it  was 
discovered  that  steam  could  take  the  place  of  human 
strength,  and  out  of  that  simple  discovery  developed 
modern  machinery  with  its  revolutionary  influence 
upon  all  modern  history.  The  huge  mill  is  not  a 
place  where  things  can  be  done  in  the  same  way  as 
in  the  shop  of  the  old  craftsman;  the  problems  of  a 
factory  are  not  those  of  a  one-room  shop;  and  be- 
cause we  are  still  trying  to  fit  old  ways  to  new  con- 
ditions do  we  find  ourselves  in  what  is  called 
industrial  warfare,  but  which  would  better  be 
named  industrial  adjustment. 

We  are  prone  to  talk,  moreover,  as  though  handi- 
crafts had  wholly  disappeared  and  as  if  machinery 
had  turned  the  men  and  women  who  manipulate 
it  into  soulless  machines  themselves.  We  forget, 
however,  that  no  machinery  can  take  the  place  of 
the  vast  body  of  house-craftsmen  or  of  artist-crafts- 
men —  of  carpenters,  masons,  plumbers,  stone- 


THE  MECHANIC  ARTS  241 

cutters,  wood-carvers,  etc.  —  and  we  forget,  too,  that 
almost  any  machine  calls  for  more  skill  and  brains, 
though  at  the  same  time  for  less  artistic  power,  in 
its  handling  than  did  many  of  the  outworn  crafts. 
The  blessing  of  machinery  is,  of  course,  that  by  turn- 
ing out  many  more  things  at  a  much  less  price  it  is 
enabling  a  continually  increasing  proportion  of  man- 
kind to  have  more  comfort  and  more  happiness  and 
to  be  of  more  use  in  the  world.  What  remains  to 
be  done  with  machinery  is,  first,  to  adjust  it  more 
perfectly  to  the  social  welfare,  and  then  to  make  it 
produce  more  beautiful  and  more  solid  results. 

Beauty,  however,  was  not  all  that  disappeared, 
temporarily,  with  the  overthrow  of  the  old  handi- 
crafts. The  apprentice  system  went  too;  and  the 
crying  question  of  to-day  is  how  properly  to  educate 
a  boy  for  the  mechanic  arts  and  industries.  If  he 
is  brought  up  in  the  country  he  gets  his  training  for 
agriculture  as  he  goes  along;  if  he  seeks  a  profession 
he  finds  the  colleges  and  schools  of  technology  all 
ready  to  prepare  him;  if  he  thinks  of  going  into 
business  he  will  discover  that  his  public  school  has 
given  him  a  fairly  good  training,  for  most  of  those 
schools  lay  out  their  courses  as  if  every  pupil  were 
going  into  either  a  college  or  a  counting  room.  If, 
however,  a  boy  wants  to  follow  a  trade  or  to  take  up 
manufacturing,  he  will  find  it  difficult,  in  the  first 


242  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

place,  to  get  in  at  all,  and,  after  he  gets  in,  all  the 
education  he  acquires  must  be  picked  up,  with  rare 
exceptions,  haphazard  and  by  observation,  a  most 
wasteful  and  discouraging  way  in  which  to  learn. 
This  is  doublyunfortunate,  for  it  overloads  commerce 
with  boys  who  might  do  better  work  in  a  trade,  and 
it  deprives  the  crafts  of  young  men  who  would 
honor  them  and  of  whom  those  crafts  are  in  direst 
need. 

There  is  little  danger  of  our  going  too  far,  it 
seems  to  me,  in  influencing  young  men  to  take  up 
trades  and  manufacturing  rather  than  a  mercantile 
career.  The  hard  and  regular  physical  work,  the 
opportunity  for  using  all  his  powers,  the  chances  for 
bettering  himself,  the  consciousness  that  he  is 
creating  a  good  and  useful  thing:  these  are  ten  times 
better  for  a  youth  than  anything  which  he  can  gen- 
erally get  in  an  average  counting  room  or  shop. 
Whatever  the  life-work,  the  main  qualities  which 
make  for  success  are  honesty,  moral  courage,  re- 
sourcefulness, faithfulness,  ambition.  As  a  rule, 
there  is  much  more  to  encourage  those  virtues  and 
there  is  much  more  opportunity  to  exhibit  them  in 
a  trade  or  in  manufacturing  than  is  usually  afforded 
by  any  species  of  mercantile  life. 

As  has  been  pointed  out,  the  first  difficulty  which 
meets  a  boy  in  trying  to  take  up  any  of  the  mechanic 


THE  MECHANIC  ARTS  243 

arts  as  a  profession  is  that  of  getting  a  proper  edu- 
cation. A  second  problem  will  confront  him  not 
only  when  he  tries  to  enter  a  trade  but  also  after  he 
gets  in:  the  problem  of  the  trade  union.  And  if 
a  young  man  joins  a  trade  union  let  him  take  an  ac- 
tive part  in  what  it  does.  The  unions  have  done 
many  foolish  and  wrong  things;  but  the  principle  of 
trade  unionism  is  sound,  and  what  is  right  in  prin- 
ciple is  bound  eventually  to  come  out  right  in 
practice.  It  is  right  that  men  in  a  craft  should  com- 
bine to  secure  decent  and  equitable  conditions, 
proper  homes,  fair  wages,  that  esprit  de  corps  which  is 
the  soul  and  strength  of  every  profession  and  every 
craft  as  welL  It  is  wrong  for  the  unions  —  as  many 
of  them  do  —  to  oppose  trade  schools ;  it  is  wrong 
for  them  to  limit  the  number  of  apprentices,  except- 
ing as  a  profession  limits  its  membership  by  keeping 
out  the  dishonest  and  the  ignorant;  from  every  point 
of  view  it  is  wrong  for  them  to  discourage  any 
member  from  doing  just  as  much  and  just  as  good 
work  as  he  possibly  can.  But  these  are  the  mistakes 
of  social  adjustment  and  of  inexperience;  they  arise 
largely  from  the  fact  that  the  strongest  craftsmen 
have  held  aloof  and  have  let  the  weaker  and  more 
radical  rule.  But  under  strong,  wise  management 
the  unions  have  it  in  their  power  not  only  to  solve 
the  difficult  problems  of  modern  industry,  but 


244  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

also  to  be,  just  as  were  the  guilds  of  four  centu- 
ries ago,  the  best  schools  and  training-grounds  for 
a  sane  and  enduring  democracy,  the  best  bulwarks, 
therefore,  of  a  free  and  enlightened  popular  govern- 
ment. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE    EDUCATIONAL    BEARINGS    OF    MANUAL 
TRAINING 

MANUAL  training,  whenproperlyunderstoocl 
and  rightly  carried  on,  bears  directly  and 
deeply  upon  coordination,  creativeness, 
culture,  and  character.  Upon  these  educational 
foundations,  manual  training  can  stand  "four- 
square to  all  the  winds  of  heaven,"  maintaining 
itself  triumphantly  against  the  cold  north  wind 
of  blind  opposition,  the  chilling  east  wind  of  snob- 
bish "culture,"  the  soft  south  wind  of  educational 
sentimentality,  and  the  healthful  west  wind  of 
intelligent  conservatism. 

Even  the  conservatives  in  matters  of  schooling 
are  now  agreed  that  coordination  of  the  physical, 
mental,  and  spiritual  powers  is  at  the  basis  of  all 
real  education.  From  the  wild  waving  of  the 
infant's  arms  and  the  ghastly  rolling  of  his  un- 
tutored eyeballs  up  to  the  skill  and  self-poise  of  a 
greatest  leader  of  mankind  the  educational  process 
is  mainly  one  of  coordination,  of  adjusting  this 

245 


246  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

marvellous  .human  mechanism,  of  training  the  will 
to  take  intelligent  command  of  the  physical,  mental, 
and  moral  powers.  But  complete  coordination  can- 
not be  brought  about  so  long  as  that  side  of  the 
physical,  of  the  mental,  and  —  let  us  not  hesitate 
to  say  —  of  the  spiritual  nature  reached,  and  reached 
only,  by  manual  labor  is  left  out  of  account.  It  is 
self-evident  that  there  must  be  lines  and  areas  of 
coordination  which  can  be  completed  in  no  other 
way.  It  is  of  no  moment  that  I  cannot  make  a 
shipshape  box  or  forge  a  respectable  hammer;  but  it 
is  of  serious  consequence  to  me  that  in  my  education 
the  coordinative  processes  involved  in  the  making 
of  the  box  and  hammer  were  left  wholly  out  of 
account.  Hand  training  would  not  simply  have 
given  me  manual  skill;  it  would  have  opened  for  me 
new  channels  of  intercommunication;  it  would  have 
unsealed  for  me  mental  and  moral  avenues  now 
doubtless  forever  closed;  it  would  have  strength- 
ened markedly  my  poise  and  power  of  will.  From 
the  block-building  of  the  kindergarten  to  the 
highest  development  of  the  fine  arts  every  manual 
process  not  purely  automatic,  every  manual  proc- 
ess which  requires  cooperation  of  mind  and  muscle, 
is  an  important  step  forward  in  that  general  co- 
ordination which  is  the  main  end,  and  in  which  lies 
the  chief  use,  of  all  human  education.  Therefore, 


MANUAL  TRAINING  247 

simply  as  an  aid  to  coordination,  manual  training 
would  justify  itself,  were  that  the  sole  point  of  its 
educational  bearing.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however, 
this  is  its  most  elementary  utility.  It  serves  much 
higher  uses  in  bringing  out  individuality,  in  awaken- 
ing desire  for  learning,  in  stimulating  the  will  to  take 
complete  and  wise  command. 

It  is  an  observation  as  old  as  time  that  to  arouse 
interest  one  must  promote  activity,  that  "to  do  is 
to  know."  It  was  not  Froebel  who  discovered,  but 
it  was  he  who  most  clearly  insisted,  that  the  way  to 
learn  is  to  learn  by  doing.  Out  of  this  doctrine  have 
grown  those  laboratory  methods  of  teaching  which, 
starting  in  the  kindergartens  and  the  technological 
schools,  have  invaded  even  the  most  hidebound  col- 
leges, and  are  sweeping  up  through  the  elementary 
and  down  through  the  secondary  into  that  last 
stronghold  of  conservatism,  the  grammar  schools. 
If,  in  teaching  a  child,  one  can  make  him  actually 
do  something  himself,  can  lead  him  to  create  some- 
thing really  his  own,  then  one  has  found  a  means 
surer  than  any  other  for  arousing  dormant  and 
holding  vagrant  faculties,  has  opened  a  clear  path 
to  whatever  capabilities  the  child  may  have,  has 
established  at  least  one  point  of  contact  between  the 
trained  individuality  of  the  teacher  and  the,  as  yet, 
nebulous  individuality  of  the  growing  child.  But 


248  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

what  opportunity  did  the  old-fashioned  curricula 
offer  for  this  important  business  of  creativeness? 
They  presented,  as  a  rule,  but  one  avenue  —  and  that 
the  least  likely  for  the  child  to  follow  —  the  avenue 
of  literary  creation.  Literary  creation,  however,  is  the 
most  difficult  of  all  arts,  it  presupposes  the  widest  ac- 
quaintance with  civilization  and  with  life,  it  is  one  in 
which  the  child  soonest  meets  insurmountable  obsta- 
cles. Nevertheless,  the  old  courses  of  study,  feeling 
dimly  the  necessity  for  creativeness  in  education, 
set  pupils  at  the  work  of  creating,  and,  as  a  result,  we 
had  in  schools  those  worse  than  futile  "composi- 
tions" on  Faith,  Hope,  or  Charity;  we  had  in  col- 
leges that  abomination  of  educational  desolation, 
the  writing  of  Latin  verse.  In  both  exercises  the 
creative  element  was  about  as  genuine  as  in  the  con- 
versation of  a  garrulous  parrot.  If  teased  by  fond 
parents  to  admire  those  compositions  or  those  verses, 
because  of  their  inherent  difficulty,  one  felt  like 
making  rude  Sam  Johnson's  reply  to  the  mother  who 
asked  him  to  admire  her  daughter's  harpsichord 
playing  because  of  the  difficulty  of  the  performance: 
"Difficult,  madam?  Would  God  it  were  impos- 
sible!" 

With  manual  training,  however  —  using  the 
phrase  so  broadly  as  to  include  the  feeblest  "oc- 
cupation" of  the  youngest  flower  in  the  kinder- 


MANUAL  TRAINING  249 

garten  —  the  immature  faculties  are  not  forced  out 
of  their  normal  path,  the  child  is  not  compelled  to 
lie  to  you  and  to  himself  by  pretending  to  a  literary 
power  which  he  cannot  have.  One  simply  employs 
the  natural  instinct  of  the  child  to  use  its  hands, 
one  merely  seizes  upon  that  passion  of  most 
children  to  make  something,  one  but  leads  into 
regulated  channels  the  brimming  enthusiasm  of 
healthy  youth  for  the  bending  and  shaping  of  inan- 
imate things. 

One  might  show,  of  course,  many  directions  in 
which  the  creative  instinct  stimulated  by  manual 
training  serves,  as  no  other  educational  process  can, 
in  the  development  of  many  a  boy  and  girl;  but 
perhaps  the  most  far-reaching  use  is  in  unlocking 
and  then  in  forming  and  strengthening  individuality. 
The  most  pressing  educational  question  is  how  to 
save  the  child's  individuality,  how  to  keep  him  from 
becoming  a  mere  cog  in  the  colossal  social  ma- 
chine. In  our  pride  at  giving  free  education  to 
millions  of  children,  in  our  delight  at  the  smoothness 
with  which  the  day's  program  glides  by,  at  the 
precision  with  which,  so  to  speak,  the  pupils  present 
arms  to  us,  their  officers,  we  are  falling  into  an  easy 
but  most  dangerous  uniformity,  we  are  securing  a 
quiet  in  our  schoolrooms  that  is  too  often  the  death- 
quiet  of  spiritual  collapse.  Such  phalanx-teaching 


NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

is  not  education:  it  is  pedagogical  militarism. 
Real  education  forbids  such  uniformity,  and  de- 
mands instead  that  every  boy  and  girl  during  every 
school-day  be  brought  within  the  personal  view  and 
understanding,  within  the  sphere  of  direct,  humaniz- 
ing influence  of  the  human  man  or  woman  who  is, 
or  ought  to  be,  the  child's  teacher.  The  first  step 
toward  this  real  education  is,  of  course,  to  secure 
smaller  classes  in  the  schools,  and  over  those  smaller 
classes  to  place,  in  every  instance,  teachers  who  know 
how  to  teach.  But  a  second  step  (and  it  will  go  far) 
is  to  infuse  into  our  school  programs,  from  the 
very  first  to  the  very  last  year  of  school,  much  manual 
training  of  many  kinds.  For  manual  training,  of 
whatever  type,  cannot  be  done  by  battalions:  it 
must  be  performed  by  individuals.  Handwork 
cannot  be  slurred  over  in  chorus:  it  must  really  be 
done,  each  piece  and  process,  under  the  teacher's  eye. 
A  class  in  handicraft  cannot  be  kept  by  any  person 
with  a  voice  harsh  enough  and  an  eye  piercing 
enough  to  maintain  cowed  silence  among  seventy 
children:  it  must  be  supervised  by  some  one  who 
knows  how,  who  can  stand  the  tangible  test  of  his 
pupils'  handiwork,  and  who,  since  he  must  per- 
sonally watch  every  child's  task,  cannot  in  the  very 
nature  of  things  be  insulted  by  being  told  to  educate 
—  save  the  mark!  —  a  greater  number  of  human 


MANUAL  TRAINING  251 

beings  than  is  usually  given  of  young  pigs  to  a 
swineherd's  custody. 

Manual  training,  then,  makes  for  the  intensive 
development  of  the  individual  under  the  vigilant 
eye  and  the  really  educating  mind  of  the  individual 
teacher.  But  education  should  be  extensive  as  well 
as  intensive.  It  should  first,  of  course,  develop 
the  individual  along  the  lines  of  his  individuality; 
but,  having  done  that,  it  ought  next  to  broaden 
that  individual  along  the  lines  of  human  civilization. 
In  other  words,  having  brought  the  child  to  a  knowl- 
edge of  himself,  it  should  lead  him  next  to  know  the 
human  race.  From  the  cultivation  of  the  single 
boy  or  girl,  it  should  widen  out  to  the  culture  of 
humanity.  Therefore,  the  third  educational  bearing 
of  manual  training  is  upon  the  culture  side. 

To  join  culture  —  a  fetish  word  as  blessed  to  the 
conservatives  as  "Mesopotamia"  was  to  the  old 
lady  —  to  manual  training  is  to  scandalize  the  tories 
in  education,  is  to  amuse  that  lessening  class  of  men 
who  blandly  assert  that  no  useful  study  can  be 
cultural.  Nevertheless,  to  culture  in  its  true  mean- 
ing manual  training  has  a  most  important  relation. 
For  to  have  culture  is  not  merely  to  be  learned  in  the 
classics  and  in  literature:  it  is  to  have  a  mind  fur- 
nished with  many,  and  many  different,  things;  it  is 
to  have  breadth  of  view,  knowledge  of  the  world, 


2$2  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

skill  in  dealing  with  men,  ability  to  foresee  and  intel- 
ligence to  grapple  with  the  complex  problems  which 
meet  one  every  day;  it  is  to  possess  an  agreeable,  an 
equable,  a  tolerant  personality;  it  implies  tact;  it 
means,  above  all,  power  to  understand  and  to  deal 
with  men.  But  how  is  one  to  be  really  broad,  how 
is  one  to  be  able  to  meet  all  kinds  of  men,  how  is  one 
to  know  life  as  the  really  cultured  man  ought  to 
understand  it,  if  that  whole  side  of  his  experience 
which  should  look  toward  industrialism,  toward 
that  manual  labor  which  lies  at  the  foundation  of 
all  arts  and  livelihood  and  life  itself,  is  little  better 
than  a  blank  wall?  It  is  not  to  be  maintained,  of 
course,  that  skill  in  carpentry  will  unravel  for  a  man 
the  labor  question  or  enable  him  to  deal  wisely  with 
the  problems  of  the  industrial  world;  but  he  whose 
hands  as  well  as  his  memory  and  judgment  have 
been  trained,  he  who  has  actually  labored  and  has 
had  experience,  on  however  small  a  scale,  of  what 
the  industrial  processes  involve  —  he  is  a  far  broader 
man,  is  a  far  more  liberal  man,  is  a  far  more  all- 
round  man,  than  one  who  has  simply  been  delving, 
no  matter  how  deeply,  into  literature,  philosophy 
and  abstract  ethics.  The  former  may  possess  less 
knowledge  than  the  latter  of  the  humanities,  but 
he  will  know  more  of  humanity;  and  culture,  in  the 
modern  understanding  of  it,  is  the  science  and  art 


MANUAL  TRAINING  253 

of  living  wisely  and  nobly  with  and  for  one's  fellow- 
men. 

Fourthly,  manual  training  bears  strongly  and 
with  excellent  effect  upon  that  goal  of  all  education 
—  character.  This  follows  naturally  from  its  lesser 
function  as  a  coordinative  force.  To  educate  is  to 
coordinate;  and  to  coordinate  is  to  put  the  powers  of 
the  body  and  mind  more  and  more  under  the  com- 
mand of  an  intelligent,  a  purposeful,  an  upward- 
striving  will.  What,  indeed,  is  a  formed  character 
but  one  in  which  all  the  functions,  all  the  thoughts, 
all  the  motives,  all  the  desires,  are  marshalled,  ruled 
and  inspired  by  a  strong  and  well-balanced  will?  To 
have  taken  a  piece  of  wood  and  compelled  it  to  the 
shape  that  lay  in  one's  mind  or  upon  one's  paper  — 
is  not  that  an  exercise  in  will-strengthening  of  the 
highest  educative  value?  To  forge  the  iron,  to  carve 
the  wood,  to  mold  the  clay,  to  draw  the  design,  to 
conceive  and  to  impress  the  pattern  —  is  not  each  one 
of  these  a  healthful,  really  educational  development 
of  will-power,  accompanied  by  that  sense  of  pleasure 
which  comes  from  the  act  of  construction,  by  that 
still  higher  delight  arising  from  the  contemplation  of 
one's  own  finished  work?  And  let  us  note,  in  pass- 
ing, the  tremendous  advantage  of  manual  training 
as  an  educator  of  the  will,  in  that  its  results  do  not 
have  to  be  explained  or  accepted  upon  faith  or 


254  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

looked  forward  to  in  some  far  future  of  postponed 
rewards.  With  the  work  of  one's  hands  the  effort, 
often  hard  and  disagreeable,  is  followed  immediately 
by  its  result,  good  if  that  effort  has  been  earnest  and 
genuine,  bad  if  that  effort  has  not  been  sustained 
and  real.  Every  piece  of  handwork  preaches  to  the 
child,  in  tones  which  he  cannot  fail  to  understand, 
the  awful  law  of  cause  and  effect,  the  immutable 
law  that  "whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that  shall  he 
also  reap." 

These,  I  maintain  then,  are  the  four  chief  bear- 
ings of  manual  training  upon  education.  Rightly 
conceived  and  carried  on,  it  promotes  coordination, 
it  develops  creativeness,  it  broadens  culture,  it 
strengthens  character.  What  are  some  things  es- 
sential, however,  in  order  that  it  may  do  its  perfect 
educational  work  in  these  four  directions?  In 
order  to  further  coordination,  manual  training  in 
some  form  (and  its  forms  are  protean)  must  have  an 
integral  place  and  an  uninterrupted  sequence  in 
the  curriculum  from  the  earliest  kindergarten  to 
and  through  the  university.  Coordination  is  not 
a  process  to  be  taken  up  to-day  and  dropped  to- 
morrow; and,  if  manual  training  is  to  play  a  vital 
part  in  coordination,  it  must  not  be  chopped  up 
and  scattered  about  to  suit  fanciful  program- 
mongers.  It  must  be  built  up  logically  and  de- 


MANUAL  TRAINING  255 

veloped  wisely,  to  serve  the  needs  of  a  real,  organic 
education. 

Next,  to  fulfil  its  function  as  a  stimulus  to  crea- 
tiveness,  manual  training  must  really  create  some- 
thing: it  must  produce  things  of  use,  things  of 
beauty.  The  child  or  the  youth,  when  set  to  work 
with  tools,  is  not  satisfied  merely  to  learn  an  abstract 
principle:  he  seeks  to  do  something  tangible;  and  it 
is  educationally  right  that  this  craving  should  be 
gratified.  His  teachers  must  make  certain  only 
that  this  tangible  creation  of  his  is  really  useful  and 
is  truly  beautiful  with  that  genuine  beauty  which 
grows  out  of  the  fitness  of  an  object  to  its  purposes. 

Thirdly,  to  fulfil  its  culture  function,  manual 
training  must  be  representative  of  the  life  of  the 
child's  house  and  of  its  neighborhood,  of  the  atmos- 
phere of  his  town  or  city,  of  the  larger  genius  of  his 
nation  and  his  race.  It  must  identify  the  child 
closely  with  the  general  industries  of  his  people,  with 
the  special  industries  of  his  community.  It  must 
connect  him,  hardly  less  closely,  with  the  industrial 
and  social  history  of  mankind,  with  that  age-long 
history  of  which  his  own  developing  life  is  the  incon- 
ceivably rapid  epitome.  Above  all,  his  training  on 
this  side  must  be  toward  genuine  craftsmanship, 
toward  the  making  of  true  things  solidly,  of  solid 
things  beautifully.  The  use  of  what  he  makes,  the 


256  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

beauty  of  what  he  makes,  must  ever  be  clearly  before 
him;  and  use  and  beauty  must  be  made  to  dwell, 
inseparable,  in  his  thoughts  and  his  ideals.  In 
this  way  will  he  come,  better  than  in  any  other,  to 
a  real  conception,  to  a  genuine  appreciation,  to  a  true 
understanding  of  aesthetics,  and  of  the  close  inter- 
dependence of  the  aesthetic  and  the  ethical. 

As  to  the  fourth  bearing  of  manual  training,  its 
bearing  upon  character,  I  have  already  dwelt  upon 
it.  We  cannot  do  good  handwork  without  sticking 
to  honesty  and  truth;  we  cannot,  in  manual  training, 
hide  or  equivocate  or  slide  over.  The  good  work  we 
do  is  there,  the  bad  work  we  do  is  there,  plain  for  all 
the  world  to  see.  And  every  effort  made  in  such  train- 
ing is  a  discipline  of  the  will,  every  success  is  a  strength- 
ening and  stimulus  of  that  will,  every  failure,  if  the 
child  be  good  for  anything,  is  a  trumpet-call  to  the  re- 
newal of  that  fight  in  which,  if  good  character  is  to  re- 
sult, the  will  must  gain  the  mastery.  The  splendid 
opportunity  of  the  manual  trainer  is  that  he  may  by 
his  teaching  prove  what  Browning  said,  that 

"  It  is  the  glory  and  the  good  of  art 
That  Art  remains  the  one  way  possible 
Of  speaking  truth." 

What,  then,  are  some  of  the  things  which  manual 
training  must  work  for  and  must  secure  if  it  would 


MANUAL  TRAINING  257 

take  its  rightful  place  among  the  great  educational 
agencies  of  modern  civilization  ?  As  was  said  in  the 
beginning,  even  the  conservatives  acknowledge  co- 
ordination to  be  at  the  foundation  of  all  education; 
and  a  very  little  effort  ought  to  persuade  them  of  the 
value  of  manual  training  as  a  coordinative  force. 
Therefore,  the  first  thing  to  demand  would  seem  to 
be  continuity  in  manual  training  throughout  the 
whole  school  life.  What  have  we  now?  Excellent 
manual  training  in  the  kindergarten  (provided 
it  be  carried  on  for  the  reason  that  it  is  good  for 
the  child  to  create,  and  not  in  deference  to  some  far- 
fetched symbolism).  We  have  excellent  manual 
training  in  some  secondary  schools.  In  the  years 
between  we  find  some  coherent,  much  incoherent, 
drawing;  we  find  here  some  sloyd,  there  some  cook- 
ing, elsewhere  some  sewing,  and,  scattered  hither 
and  yon,  various  more  or  less  mad  experimentations 
of  sundry  cranks  and  school  committees.  Most  of 
these  experiments  are  tried  one  year  and  are  aban- 
doned the  next,  are.  hotly  pursued  by  one  committee 
and  are  roundly  denounced  by  its  successor.  But 
in  this  is  neither  cohesion  of  plan  nor  coordination 
of  results.  Secondary-school  men  may  lay  out  good 
courses;  but,  as  a  rule,  they  are  superstructures 
without  foundations,  hanging  in  educational  air. 
Those  courses  ought,  however,  to  be  the  culmination 


258  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

of  eight  years  of  wisely  planned,  steadily  pursued, 
widely  varied  manual  training  exercises.  The 
pupils  coming  to  a  high  school  should  not  there  first 
meet  with  tools;  these  children  should  have  been 
uninterruptedly  using  their  hands  to  create,  just  as 
they  have  been  using  their  tongues  to  speak,  from 
their  earliest  day  at  school.  Manual  training  can- 
not promote  coordination  until  that  training  itself 
is  made  coordinate. 

Furthermore,  it  seems  to  me,  manual  training 
ought  to  stop  apologizing  and  ought,  if  it  must,  to 
come  out  and  fight.  It  was  perhaps  necessary, 
away  back  in  the  seventies,  for  this  new  kind  of 
study,  like  the  genius  imprisoned  in  Sindbad's  bottle, 
to  speak  low  and  make  fair  promises;  for  it  was 
indeed  corked  up  tight  by  that  then  master  of  the 
educational  situation,  the  nine-centuries-old  monastic 
curriculum.  It  was  probably  the  part  of  wisdom 
for  manual  training  at  that  time  to  swear  that  it  had 
no  thought  of  being  useful,  that  it  did  not  dream  of 
connecting  itself  with  vulgar  trades,  that  it  would 
deal  with  principles,  not  with  practices,  that  it  would 
teach  the  driving  of  nails,  but  not  the  making  of  a 
living.  That  probation  period,  however,  has  gone 
by.  The  bottle  has  been  uncorked,  the  genius  of 
manual  training,  or,  rather,  of  laboratory  methods, 
has  come  out,  and  has  expanded  to  enormous  pro- 


MANUAL  TRAINING  259 

portions;  while  before  it  kneels  the  old  curriculum, 
in  its  turn  apologizing  for  existence,  in  its  turn  beg- 
ging for  the  right  to  live.  The  "humanties"  may 
not  like  manual  training  any  better  than  they  did 
thirty  years  ago;  but  their  dislike  now  is  the  hate  of 
fear,  not  of  supercilious  arrogance. 

Being,  then,  practically  masters  of  the  educational 
field,  why  longer  maintain  the  fiction  of  academic 
uselessness,  why  longer  declare  that  manual  train- 
ing intends  to  be  only  disciplinary,  not  economically 
serviceable?  Its  use,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  is 
superlatively  in  the  direction  of  physical,  mental,  and 
moral  discipline;  but  its  power  in  those  directions 
will  be  infinitely  greater  if  it  allies  itself  with  life, 
with  industry,  with  bread-and-butter  getting.  For, 
after  all,  every  one  of  us  must  get  his  bread  and 
butter,  the  great  majority  must  earn  it  by  their 
own  two  hands.  No  school  education,  praise  Heaven, 
can  be  so  bad  as  to  defraud  us  of  the  lifelong  school- 
ing of  our  daily  toil.  But  during  all  these  centuries 
(thanks  mainly  to  its  monastic  origin)  education 
has  been  acting  as  though  it  could  stand  apart  from 
life  and  livelihood,  has  been  holding  itself  aloof 
from  the  boy's  and  girl's  real  interests,  has  been 
covertly  sneering  at  manual  labor,  has  been  filling 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of  honest  youth 
with  a  vague  notion  that  the  educated  man  can  be  a 


26o  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

sort  of  lily  of  the  field  which,  having  arrayed  itself 
in  Greek  and  Latin,  need  neither  toil  nor  spin. 
Therefore,  we  see  such  a  host  of  starveling  clerks, 
pettifogging  lawyers,  and  political  hangers-on; 
therefore  we  find  it  well-nigh  impossible  to  get  a 
good  mechanic;  therefore  we  observe  the  tendency 
of  craftsmanship  —  once  jealous  of  its  skill  and  rep- 
utation —  to  seek  short  hours  and  shoddy  ways  of 
work.  The  present  curse  of  this  country  is  glue. 
With  it  we  stick  senseless  jig-saw  work  upon  our 
furniture,  foolish  gewgaws  on  our  "Crazy-Jane" 
houses,  hideous  passementerie  on  our  slop-shop 
gowns,  demoralizing  smatterings  of  false  culture 
upon  our  boys  and  girls.  Manual  training,  if  it 
will,  can  carry  on  a  crusade  of  the  noblest  kind,  a 
crusade  against  this  spirit  of  veneer,  sham,  hypocrisy; 
a  crusade  against  any  ornamentation,  culture,  or 
virtue  that  is  only  stuck  on;  a  crusade  for  that  real 
beauty,  whether  in  craftsmanship,  in  art,  in  archi- 
tecture, in  literature,  in  social  and  political  life, 
which  grows  out  of  the  honest  dedication  of  any- 
thing, no  matter  how  homely  or  common,  to  a 
noble  use;  a  crusade  against  false,  monastic,  anti- 
social, self-centred  culture;  a  crusade  for  real  cul- 
ture, which,  as  I  have  already  said,  is  the  science 
and  art  of  living  wisely  and  nobly  with  and  for  one's 
fellowmen. 


MANUAL  TRAINING  261 

To  these  ends,  it  seems  to  me,  manual  training 
must  go  into  every  school;  and  it  must  go,  not  as  a 
fixed  plan  of  study,  but  as  a  special  means  of  meet- 
ing the  particular  needs  of  that  school's  children. 
What,  it  should  ask,  is  the  prevailing  industry  of  this 
city,  what  the  peculiar  craft  of  this  neighbourhood, 
what  are  these  particular  boys  and  girls  almost 
certain  to  be  and  do?  Having  ascertained  these 
facts,  manual  training  can  then  perform  an  educa- 
tional work  such  as  has  scarcely  yet  been  dreamed 
of  in  ennobling  those  industries,  in  uplifting  those 
children's  ideals,  in  marrying  education  to  life,  in 
wedding  true  culture  to  genuine  industry. 

To  perform  this  great  work,  however,  manual 
training  has  still  another  fight  to  wage,  a  fight  against 
the  absurd  distinction  between  the  arts  called  use- 
ful and  the  arts  called  fine.  There  is  and  should  be 
no  such  discrimination.  No  art  is  fine  which  does 
not,  through  its  beauty  as  through  an  enhancing 
veil,  exhibit  its  fundamental  use.  No  art  is  useful 
which  does  not,  even  in  its  simplest  forms,  mount 
into  the  empyrean  of  the  fine.  Beauty  and  truth 
are  one  and  the  same,  and  every  exercise  in  manual 
training  should  emphasize  both.  The  great  fields 
of  ethics  and  aesthetics  can  be  reached  through  other 
avenues  than  Greek  and  Latin;  but  we  have  scarcely 
yet  surveyed  these  avenues,  while  we  have  allowed 


262  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

the  old  classical  paths  to  be  overgrown  with  gram- 
matical and  philological  weeds.  One  of  the  broadest 
of  the  modern  avenues  to  ethics  and  aesthetics  is 
through  manual  training,  whose  possibilities  as  a 
true  culture  study  are,  in  my  opinion,  almost  wholly 
undeveloped.  For  in  most  instances  the  manual 
trainers  have  avoided  use  lest  they  offend  the  edu- 
cational tories,  have  failed  of  beauty  because,  first, 
there  cannot  be  beauty  without  use,  and,  secondly, 
because  aesthetics  has  been  terra  incognita  to  the 
well-meaning  mechanic-teacher,  who,  given  a  task 
to  which  he  was  unequal,  has  been  as  ignorant  of 
child  training  as  of  true  manual  art. 

This  brings  us  to  the  final,  and  what  all  educators 
know  to  be  the  crucial,  problem  of  the  manual 
training  question:  how  to  get  teachers  fit  for  the 
splendid  work  that  they  might  do.  In  the  beginning 
resort  had  to  be,  of  course,  to  the  ranks  of  the  skilled 
mechanics:  sincere  men,  well-intentioned  men,  men 
seeking  to  do  the  best  they  could.  But  they  were 
not  trained  teachers;  they  were  hampered  by  the 
absurd  restrictions  against  usefulness  in  manual 
training;  they  were  obliged  to  build  for  the  high- 
school  pupils  whom  they  taught  a  superstructure 
without  educational  foundations.  So  there  resulted 
something  which  was  well  called  shop-work;  for  it 
was  little  other  than  the  'prentice  work  of  any  shop, 


[  MANUAL  TRAINING  263 

interesting,  somewhat  stimulating,  better  than  noth- 
ing. But  it  was  not  and  is  not  manual  training  in 
the  sense  in  which  we  see  its  higher  possibilities; 
it  could  not,  in  very  great  measure,  aid  in  co- 
ordination, stimulate  creativeness,  promote  culture, 
or  build  up  character.  For  that  true  work  of 
manual  training  the  schools  must  have  broadly 
educated,  completely  trained,  highly  inspired  men 
and  women,  who  see  the  many  bearings  of  manual 
training  upon  life  and  character,  who  are  wise  in  art, 
in  ethics,  and  in  that  offspring  of  art  and  ethics  which 
men  call  aesthetics.  There  are  many  such  teachers 
now.  When  such  are  in  the  majority,  manual 
training  will  surely  be  extended  into  all  its  many 
educative  forms,  will  be  then  made  continuous 
throughout  the  whole  school  life,  will  be  then  up- 
lifted to  its  rightful  place  as  one  of  the  strong 
teaching  forces  of  modern  times. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE    RUSSIAN    SYSTEM    OF    MANUAL   TRAINING 

THE  Centennial  Exposition  at  Philadelphia, 
in  1876,  was  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States,  for  the  exhibits  there  shown 
made  us  realize,  as  we  had  not  before,  our  weak 
as  well  as  our  strong  points  as  a  nascent  indus- 
trial nation.  Though  far  smaller  than  subsequent 
"World's  Fairs,"  such  as  that  at  Chicago,  the 
Philadelphia  Exposition  was  much  more  efficient 
as  a  means  of  education;  and  the  people  who  came 
to  it  really  regarded  it  seriously  as  such.  This, 
together  with  the  fact  that  it  was  held  just  at  the 
beginning  of  an  extraordinary  era  of  national  ex- 
pansion, gives  it  for  all  time  a  high  place  among  the 
agencies  which  have  carried  this  country  to  the 
front  among  the  powers  of  the  world. 

Especially  did  the  exhibits  of  such  countries  as 
France,  Japan,  Russia,  Sweden,  and  Norway  make 
us  realize  how  deficient  we  were  in  the  applied  arts 
and  how  much  we  had  to  learn  in  the  direction  of 
uniting  beauty  with  use  in  the  industrial  processes. 

264 


THE  RUSSIAN  SYSTEM  265 

Those  having  to  do  with  teaching,  especially  in  the 
field  of  science  and  the  arts,  were  above  all  aroused 
to  the  necessity  of  training  the  manual  powers  (with 
all  which  that  involves)  if  we  were  to  give  an  educa- 
tion suited  to  the  increasingly  urgent  demands  of 
the  industrial  world.  This  being  the  case,  such 
men  studied  most  eagerly  the  exhibit  of  the  Im- 
perial Technical  School  at  Moscow  and  believed 
they  had  found  in  the  system  which  that  exem- 
plified the  surest  means  of  training  young  Americans 
to  understanding  and  power  in  the  direction  of 
manual  training  and  industrial  art. 

The  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  main- 
tained at  Philadelphia,  for  several  weeks  during 
that  summer,  a  student  camp  which  gave  its  under- 
graduates the  double  benefit  of  military  discipline 
and  of  seeing  the  "Centennial"  thoroughly  and 
cheaply.  Dr.  John  D.  Runkle,  then  president  of 
the  Institute,  had,  of  course,  general  oversight  of 
this  educational  excursion;  and  he  was  so  struck  with 
the  Russian  manual  training  exhibit  that  almost 
immediately  upon  his  return  from  Philadelphia 
he  called  the  attention  of  the  Corporation  of  the 
Institute  formally  to  this  system  of  education  and 
urged  the  establishment  at  the  Boston  school  of 
shops  modeled  upon  those  of  Moscow.  Such  shops 
were  built  in  1876,  were  opened  to  secondary- school 


266  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

pupils  under  the  name  of  a  "  School  of  Mechanic 
Arts"  in  1877,  and  since  the  taking  over  of  that 
form  of  training  by  the  city  of  Boston,  about  1884, 
have  been  maintained  and  greatly  developed  as  the 
"Mechanical  Laboratories"  of  the  Institute.  Mean- 
while Prof.  C.  M.  Woodward  had  established  (in 
1877)  similar  opportunities  for  training  in  St.  Louis; 
and  from  those  two  enterprises  have  grown  all  the 
manual-training  high  schools  and  like  institutions 
in  the  United  States. 

As  mechanical  laboratories  in  connection  with 
technological  education,  shops  conducted  upon  the 
so-called  Russian  system  are  admirable  educational 
agencies,  for  they  give  young  men  who  are  to  be 
leaders  in  the  great  industrial  enterprises  that 
general  knowledge  of  the  fundamentals  of  manual 
and  shop  processes  which  it  is  essential  for  them  to 
have;  but  as  a  means  for  the  education  of  youth  of 
secondary-school  age  the  system  has  grave  defects 
which  are  daily  becoming,  I  think,  more  evident. 
In  justice  to  the  Russian  originators,  it  should  be 
said  that  these  deficiencies  are  due  mainly  to  the 
fact  that  we  adopted  but  half  their  method;  for 
their  instruction  shops,  in  which  young  men  were  to 
learn  the  principles  of  wood-working,  forging,  metal- 
turning,  etc.,  are  followed  by  construction  shops  in 
which  those  same  youth  apply  their  more  general 


THE  RUSSIAN  SYSTEM  267 

knowledge  and  skill  in  the  actual  building  of  struc- 
tures and  machines.  We  took  over  the  first  type 
without  also  establishing,  as  the  Russians  do,  a 
complementary  type  of  shop  without  which  the  first 
has,  so  to  speak,  no  educational  outlet. 

Some  of  the  defects  of  the  system  of  manual 
training  based,  in  a  general  way,  upon  the  trun- 
cated Russian  system  which  we  adopted  appear 
to  be: 

(i)  The  fact  that  the  exercises  are  such  as  to  be 
beyond  the  powers  of  boys  below  the  secondary- 
school  age.  This  confines  the  work  of  the  manual 
training  school  substantially  to  the  years  between 
fourteen  and  eighteen,  putting  it  beyond  the  reach 
of  a  vast  majority  of  the  youth  who  most  need  it, 
and  hanging  it,  moreover,  in  pedagogical  air,  be- 
tween those  unrelated,  purely  mental  exercises  that 
have  preceded  it  and  those  unrelated  subsequent 
vocations  into  which,  as  a  rule,  its  pupils  go.  Man- 
ual training  should  not  be  a  course  thrust  into  the 
school;  it  should  be  a  steady  process  of  develop- 
ment from  the  time  the  child  enters  school,  and 
should  be  gradually  differentiated  to  meet,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  individual  powers  of  the  pupil,  and 
to  prepare  him  in  some  degree,  on  the  other  hand, 
for  the  vocation  which  it  is  most  probable  that  he 
can  successfully  pursue. 


268          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

(2)  The  fact  —  upon  which  much  emphasis  was 
laid  in  the  beginning  —  that  the  same  exercise  can 
be  given   to  thirty  or  forty  pupils  at  one  time. 
While  this  lessens  the  expense  of  teaching,  it  de- 
feats what  should  be  the  main  purpose  of  manual 
training  —  the  discovery  and  development  of  each 
child's  individuality. 

(3)  The  fact  that,  because  each  pupil  has  his  own 
set  of  tools  and  follows  a  prescribed  course,  the  work 
in  manual  training  is  a  solitary,  instead  of  being  a 
gregarious  exercise.     Next  to  determining  and  de- 
veloping individuality,  the  manual  exercises  should 
serve  their  greatest  use  in  developing  the  spirit  of 
"together,"  of  mutual  dependence,  and  of  mutual 
helpfulness.     Therefore,   the   exercises   should   em- 
body, to  the  highest  degree  possible,  the  element  of 
building  some  structure  or  machine  to  which  every 
pupil  contributes  his  part,  the  structure  being  use- 
less without  that  part,  and  the  part,  on  the  other 
hand,  serving  no  purpose  except  as  an  element  of  the 
whole.     No     better     means     than     this     can     be 
devised  of  imbuing  children  with   the  understand- 
ing and  spirit  of  social  service  and,  therefore,  of 
genuine    democracy.      This    service    the    Russian 
system,  as  we  use  it,  almost  wholly  fails  to  render. 

(4)  The  fact  that  this  type  of  manual  training 
is  so  purely  an  exercise  rather  than  an  achievement, 


THE  RUSSIAN  SYSTEM  269 

thus  losing  a  large  part  of  the  value  that  it  ought 
to  have  as  a  stimulus  to  useful  and  effective  living. 
In  order  that  hand  education  might  enter  into  com- 
petition (so  to  speak)  with  mind  education,  it  was 
obliged,  in  the  beginning,  to  lay  stress  upon  its 
educative  purpose  and  to  maintain  that  it  had  no 
aim  other  than  that  of  the  more  orthodox  school 
topics.  Therefore  it  held  itself  aloof  from  industry, 
and,  except  in  a  general  way,  refused  to  let  its  pupils 
see  any  connection  between  the  manual  training 
exercises  and  those  great  trades  and  industries  in 
which  the  majority  of  public-school  children  event- 
ually make  their  living.  That  time,  however,  has 
long  passed;  and  a  manual  training  which  does  not 
identify  itself  with  industry  in  general,  and  above 
all  with  the  special  industries  of  the  city  or  neigh- 
borhood in  which  the  training  is  given,  is  an 
educational  anachronism  and  does  little  more  ser- 
vice in  developing  and  strengthening  (mentally 
and  morally)  the  child  than  did  the  now-discarded 
processes  of  learning  by  rote  long  lists  of  meaning- 
less words  and  still  longer  pages  of  unintelligible 
rules.  To  have  its  greatest  value,  the  school  edu- 
cation must  come  as  close  as  possible  to  the  child's 
life  and  must  broaden  and  uplift  that  life.  To 
most  public-school  pupils  life  means  some  form  of 
manual  or  mechanical  industry.  Therefore  the 


270  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

school  exercises  which  can  come  closest  to  the 
pupil  and  can  do  most  to  uplift  him  are  those  which 
are  put  under  the  head  of  manual  training.  To 
do  this,  however,  they  must  identify  themselves 
with  that  working  life  by  frankly  recognizing  what 
the  boy  or  girl  is  likely  to  be  and  by  helping  him 
or  her  just  as  much  as  it  can  to  secure  industrial 
efficiency  and  economic  breadth. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE    DEMAND    FOR    BREADTH 

[PECIALISM  is  the  order  of  the  day.  From 
the  professor  of  Greek  down  to  the  "pro- 
fessor" who  shines  one's  shoes,  that  man  is 
in  demand  who  is  disposed  to  concentrate  all  his 
energies  upon  the  learning  or  the  doing  of  one  thing. 
Even  our  households  have  become  infected,  for 
therein  is  now  to  be  found  the  very  apotheosis  of 
specialization.  Even  so  late  as  the  beginning  of  the 
last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century,  one  maid 
would  do  substantially  all  the  work  of  the  house; 
whereas,  to-day,  the  lady  who  condescends  to  burn 
one's  beefsteak  and  to  parboil  one's  potatoes  will 
not  enter  the  laundry  or  the  dining-room,  while  the 
other  maid  (or  maids)  would  join  the  family  in  gen- 
eral starvation  before  so  far  forgetting  her  "place" 
as  to  cook  a  single  meal. 

But  what  can  be  expected  of  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  modern  world  when  the  leaders  of  American  life, 
men  in  the  professions  and  in  those  higher  institu- 
tions which  prepare  for  the  professions,  have  seem- 

271 


272  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

ingly  gone  mad  upon  the  question  of  specialization? 
Like  the  gypsy-moth,  the  specialist  was  imported 
from  Europe,  either  directly  or  through  young  men 
who  went  there  for  medical,  linguistic  or  other 
higher  studies;  and  many  a  green  tree  of  scholarship, 
many  a  fair,  broad  field  of  general  culture  has  been 
converted  by  this  importation  into  a  naked  waste 
of  narrow  pedantry. 

Of  course,  the  time  has  long  gone  by  when  any 
man,  no  matter  how  brilliant,  can,  in  Bacon's  words, 
"take  all  learning  for  his  province."  But  that  does 
not  justify  the  running  to  an  opposite  extreme,  does 
not  excuse  the  digging  of  a  hole  in  the  side  of  a  small 
mound  of  erudition,  getting  into  the  farthest  end  of 
it,  and  maintaining  that  the  tiny  patch  of  sky  framed 
by  the  mouth  of  the  hole  is  all  of  the  universe  worth 
while.  It  is  probably  necessary  that  some  man 
should  spend  his  whole  life  grubbing  at  a  certain 
obstinate  Greek  root;  but  why  call  him  learned,  when 
he  is  simply  industrious?  Why  reward  him  with 
titles  and  emoluments,  and  give  no  scholastic 
encouragement  to  the  far  less  erudite  man  who  is 
nevertheless  sending  intellectual  and  moral  roots 
over  a  wide  area  of  human  thought  and  life? 

The  curse  of  American  scholarship  and  of  Ameri- 
can education  is  the  Ph.D.  For  in  exalting  this 
decoration  of  the  specialist  we  are  repeating  the 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  BREADTH  273 

error  of  the  Schoolmen,  who  confounded  erudition, 
which  dries  up  the  soul,  with  real  wisdom,  which 
expands  man  into  almost  the  very  image  of  the  All- 
Wise.  Yet  this  hallmark  of  erudition  is  to-day 
practically  essential  as  a  key  to  a  faculty  position; 
and  it  is  so,  not  because  there  seems  any  valid 
educational  reason  for  it,  but  largely  because  it  is 
required  in  Germany  and  looks  well  in  the  pros- 
pectus. As  a  result,  hundreds  of  young  fellows  are 
starving  themselves  and  impoverishing  their  parents 
in  order  to  secure  this  decoration.  To  get  it  they  are 
pursuing  so-called  special  investigations,  by  count- 
ing the  number  of  adverbial  clauses  in  Shakespeare, 
or  by  sending  out  questionnaires  regarding  the 
proportion  of  children  who  twiddle  their  thumbs. 
Having  scraped  together  this  fatuous  information, 
they  are  spending  much  time  and  money  in  having 
it  printed,  in  order  that  another  doctorial  disserta- 
tion may  be  added  to  the  dustiest  shelves  of  the 
college  library.  And  these  most  precious  years  of  a 
man's  life,  these  years  in  which  the  youth  ought  to 
be  learning  how  to  broaden  his  mind  and  capacities, 
how  to  deal  with  men,  how  to  handle  his  faculties, 
his  tongue  and  himself  —  these  the  poor  fellow  is 
selling  for  this  mess  of  pottage  with  which  to  feed 
the  trustees  of  some  lesser  or  greater  university. 
Having  been  admitted  to  the  teaching  staff  of  the 


274  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

university,  the  fledgling  Ph.D.,  if  he  is  to  hold  his 
place,  must  produce  something,  and  that  quickly. 
But  since  his  days,  as  a  subordinate  teacher,  are 
mainly  taken  up  with  such  intellect-killing  work  as 
correcting  thousands  of  themes  or  counting  the  ap- 
paratus in  the  laboratory,  how  is  he  to  get  that 
breadth,  experience,  and  wisdom  which  alone  can 
make  what  he  is  expected  to  produce  of  any  value 
to  the  world?  Half-starved  physically  and  wholly 
starved  intellectually  and  socially,  his  only  alter- 
native is  to  specialize  still  more,  digging,  like  a  wood- 
pecker, into  some  worm  hole  of  erudition,  in  the  hope 
of  extracting  from  it  a  maggot  large  enough  to  placate 
the  learned  university  public  accustomed  thus  to 
be  fed  by  young  doctors  of  philosophy.  This  dig- 
ging is  politely  called  research;  but  it  is  the  sorriest 
counterfeit  of  the  genuine  thing,  being  but  perfunc- 
tory and  profitless  grubbing.  True  research  must 
be  founded  upon  wide  scholarship,  upon  profound 
knowledge  of  men,  and  upon  extensive  acquaintance 
with  the  world  of  letters  and  of  things.  To  compel 
such  callow  men  as  these  to  specialize  is  to  condemn 
them  to  intellectual  suicide  and,  in  so  doing,  to  kill 
true  scholarship. 

In  this  hard-hearted  world  it  would  not  very  much 
matter  that  these  poor  aspirants  should  waste  their 
intellectual  powers  in  this  way  did  it  affect  only  them 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  BREADTH  275 

and  their  long-suffering  wives.  But  it  is  these  men, 
as  a  rule,  who  become  professors  and  heads  of  de- 
partments, it  is  they  who  determine  the  atmosphere 
and  the  trend  of  the  colleges,  it  is  this  type  of  spe- 
cialist who  is  setting  the  standards  of  learning  and 
of  scholarship  for  America.  As  a  result  we  have  our 
college  populations  sharply  divided  into  grinds  and 
drones;  we  have  our  professions  filled  with  men  who 
can  do  much  within  the  little  cell  of  their  specialty, 
but  who  are  wholly  ineffectual  in  the  great  world 
of  human  interests ;  we  have  a  rich  and  powerful  civ- 
ilization that  is  breeding  pitifully  few  great  leaders 
of  human  thought. 

There  are  only  two  kinds  of  simon-pure  specialists 
allowable:  the  genius  who  has  such  a  volume  of 
treasure  to  bestow  that  every  minute  of  his  life  should 
be  devoted  to  dispensing  it,  and  the  man  who  is 
given  the  power  of  concentrated  digging  and  who  is 
vouchsafed  no  other  ability.  The  latter  will  grub 
out  the  absolutely  essential  minutiae  without  which 
learning  cannot  advance.  The  former  will  call  down 
from  heaven  those  divine  fires  which  are  to  keep 
civilization  aflame.  The  number  of  these  specialists, 
however,  is,  in  comparison  with  the  university  pop- 
ulation, infinitesimal;  and  the  great  mass  of  educated 
men  need,  not  concentration,  but  expansion,  an  in- 
tellectual highway,  not  a  groove.  Of  course,  every 


276  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

man  who  hopes  to  amount  to  anything  must  specialize 
in  some  degree.  He  must  have  a  vocation  and  must 
strive  toward  the  highest  achievement  in  that  spe- 
cialty. But  he  must  have,  in  addition,  avocations 
to  broaden  and  harmonize  and  sweeten  him;  and 
even  his  vocation  must  be  founded  upon  such  a 
knowledge  of  men  and  of  life  that/at  least  before  his 
fortieth  year,  he  could  take  up  any  other  vocation 
and  succeed  in  that. 

We  specialize  our  grammar-school  children  in 
bank  discount  and  leave  them  to  lifelong  ignorance 
of  what  mathematics  really  means.  We  specialize 
our  high-school  youth  in  battles  and  sieges  and  per- 
mit them  to  remain  ignorant  of  the  great  historic 
development,  through  industry  and  commerce,  of 
mankind.  We  specialize  our  college  youth  in  hap- 
hazard electives,  each  taught  by  a  specialist  and  most 
of  them  unrelated  to  all  the  others,  and  turn  that 
youth  out  of  college  a  veritable  ignoramus  in  regard 
to  himself  and  to  those  other  selves  with  whom  his 
whole  subsequent  life  will  be  concerned.  We  send 
out  from  our  schools  of  applied  science  many  a  man 
competent  to  put  up  a  bridge,  but  not  competent 
to  put  up  a  good  front  among  his  equals,  wise  in  the 
handling  of  formulae,  but  ignorant  in  the  handling 
of  men,  full  of  little  knacks  and  methods  of  calcula- 
tion, but  empty  of  that  tact  and  that  intellectual 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  BREADTH  277 

skill  which  are  absolutely  essential  to  professional 
success. 

The  college  teaching  of  literature,  for  example, 
is  being  dried  and  mummified  by  specialists  until 
the  study  of  human  thought  has  become  a  sort  of 
subterranean,  philological  treadmill,  with  never  a 
glimpse  into  the  wide,  high,  lasting  things  to  which 
literature  should  lead.  College  philosophy  is,  as 
a  rule,  but  a  comparative  anatomy  of  dead  and  gone 
systems,  never,  as  it  should  be,  an  inspiration  to 
wisdom,  leading  to  the  love  of  and  the  search  for 
truth.  And  how  seldom  is  the  teaching  of  science  a 
real  search  into  fundamental  principles  and  an  ex- 
position of  all-embracing  truths !  "  Facts,"  said  Mr. 
Thomas  Gradgrind,  "facts  alone  are  wanted  in  life"; 
and  facts  —  the  more  minute  the  better  —  are  the 
goal  and  joy  of  the  specialist.  But  man  is  not  an 
examinable  fact;  he  is  a  veritable  kaleidoscope  of 
elusive  impulses,  impressions,  ideals,  fictions;  and 
it  is  with  man  that  the  whole  life  of  the  educated 
man  is  to  be  lived. 

In  our  schools  and  colleges  (and  especially  in  our 
professional  schools)  we  need  to  get  back  to  the 
humanities  —  not  to  the  humanities  of  Greece  and 
Rome  as  expounded  in  Oxford  and  diluted  in  America 
— but  to  the  humanities  of  the  twentieth  century.  For 
the  study  of  the  real  humanities  implies  a  working 


278  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

knowledge  of  humankind,  of  men.  We  have  been 
so  overwhelmed  with  facts  and  discoveries  and 
theories  and  inventions  and  names  and  classifications 
that  we  are  forgetting  that  the  main  fact  in  life  is 
you  and  I.  We  have  been  so  busy  stuffing  our  chil- 
dren and  our  students  with  these  facts  and  these 
classifications  that  we  are  forgetting  that  the  main 
things  which  they,  as  men,  must  know  are  men. 
Therefore  give  a  boy  and  give  a  student  all  the  facts 
and  all  the  practice  that  he  can  get  in  school  and 
college,  provided  you  do  not  fail  to  give  him,  at  the 
same  time,  a  broad  outlook  upon  history,  upon  liter- 
ature, upon  human  experience  and  human  life. 
Whether  he  is  to  start  in  a  store,  in  an  office,  or  as  a 
"drummer";  whether  he  is  to  be  a  minister,  a  lawyer, 
an  engineer,  or  a  doctor,  his  success  in  life  depends 
enormously  upon  his  ability  to  get  on  with  and  to 
handle  men.  He  cannot  have  that  success  unless  he 
is  broad,  catholic,  tolerant,  tactful,  and  philosoph- 
ical; and  he  cannot  be  those  things  unless  he  has 
been  trained,  not  as  a  specialist,  but  as  a  man.  By 
success  is  not  meant,  of  course,  mere  financial  and 
professional  success  —  though  in  nine  cases  out  of 
ten  those  are  most  likely  to  be  achieved  by  the 
broadest  man  —  but  that  highest  success  which 
comes  through  the  widest  social  usefulness  and 
through  the  consciousness  that  one  has  got  out  of 


THE  DEMAND  FOR  BREADTH  279 

life  that  which  has  made  the  pains  of  living  really 
worth  while. 

It  may  be  an  exaggeration  to  say  that  American 
scholarship  is  in  a  deplorable  condition;  but  every 
American  must  acknowledge  that  we  do  not  produce 
our  due  proportion  of  great  men.  There  are,  of 
course,  many  excuses  which  may  properly  be  offered; 
but  one  of  the  fundamental  reasons  is  that  we  permit 
our  promising  youth  to  specialize  too  soon.  Con- 
sequently their  scholarship,  to  paraphrase  Bacon,  is 
that  of  boys,  who  can  talk  but  who  cannot  generate. 
To  produce  men  with  the  intellectual  loins  from 
which  will  spring  great  contributions  to  human 
thought  and  action  we  must  gradually  make  over  our 
whole  system  of  elementary  education  so  that  a  youth, 
instead  of  being  put  through  vast  machines  for 
imparting  facts,  shall  be  put  into  small  classes  under 
intellectually  strong  women,  and  especially  under 
intellectually  and  morally  strong  men,  who  shall 
really  develop  that  boy's  mind  and  character.  We 
must  then  persuade  the  college  authorities  not  to 
turn  callow  undergraduates  into  a  jungle  of  courses 
taught  by  specialists,  but  to  lay  out  for  those  boys 
really  developing  and  strengthening,  coherent  work 
which  shall  make  them  acquainted,  as  far  as  they  can 
learn  at  that  time  of  life,  with  men,  society,  philoso- 
phy, and  genuine  wisdom.  As  to  professional  train- 


28o  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

ing,  the  physicians  are  getting  most  nearly  at  the 
heart  of  the  problem  by  means  of  their  clinics,  their 
hospital  and  "externe"  training,  through  which  the 
embryo  physician  studies  not  simply  medicine,  but 
human  nature  and  human  life. 

Supposing  a  youth  to  be  really  educated  in  school 
and  college  and  to  be  genuinely  trained  in  his  pro- 
fessional school,  he  ought  not  to  specialize  until  he 
shall  have  had  a  number  of  years  of  wide  experience 
in  his  work,  until,  if  possible,  he  shall  have  traveled, 
until  he  shall  have  taken  a  thorough  graduate 
course  in  the  university  of  the  world.  Then  he  will 
have  breadth  and  wisdom  and  true  learning;  then 
he  will  know  real  scholarship  from  false;  then  he  will 
be  humble,  reverent,  and  eager  to  know  the  truth; 
and  only  when  a  man  arrives  at  this  mental  and 
spiritual  condition  is  he  fit  to  be  a  specialist.  Even 
then,  as  has  already  been  said,  no  man  except  a 
genius  or  a  "grubber"  is  justified  in  being  an  out- 
and-out  specialist.  All  others  must  have  at  least 
one  avocation  with  which  to  temper  and  to  put  in 
proper  perspective  their  chosen  specialties. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

WHAT   IS   DEMANDED    OF   THE   YOUNG    ENGINEER 

A  MAJOR  reason  for  the  ineffectiveness  of 
much  of  our  public  schooling  is  that  teachers 
and  pupils  have  their  eyes  and  thoughts 
fixed,  not  upon  the  real  purpose  of  education,  but 
upon  the  examination  of  next  week  or  the  promotion 
of  next  June.  The  school  and  its  processes  become 
to  them,  therefore,  ends  in  themselves.  The  petty 
lessons  which  they  teach  and  learn  obscure  the  broad 
objects  of  teaching  and  of  learning,  and  the  walls  of 
the  schoolroom  limit  their  educational  horizon.  To 
neither  such  teachers  nor  such  pupils  is  it  ever  re- 
vealed that  schooling  is  but  a  minor  means  to  the 
true  end  of  education,  which  is,  of  course,  physical, 
mental,  moral,  and  therefore  social,  efficiency. 

The  students  in  a  school  of  applied  science  have  a 
wider  view  than  this;  but  in  most  cases  it  is  an  out- 
look far  too  narrow.  They  are  aiming,  it  is  true, 
toward  the  goal  of  a  professional  career;  but  they 
usually  see  in  that  future  profession,  not  an  oppor- 
tunity for  social  usefulness,  not  the  happiness  which 

281 


282  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

is  reached  through  efficiency,  not  the  unselfish  de- 
votion of  (for  example)  the  "born"  physician:  they 
anticipate,  on  the  contrary,  merely  the  power,  the 
money,  and  the  ultimate  ease  which  professional  suc- 
cess may  bring.  Therefore,  few  undergraduates 
study  the  subjects  in  the  curriculum  because  they 
care  for  them  or  because  they  grasp  the  relation 
between  those  topics  and  the  social  organism.  They 
pursue  them  simply  because  the  subjects  must  be 
overleaped  —  like  obstacles  in  a  hurdle-race  —  by  an 
irksome  process  called  examination,  in  order  to  secure 
a  degree.  The  degree  itself  they  look  upon  as  an 
end  worth  working  for,  since  its  possession  means, 
usually,  a  remunerative  "job,"  which  will  lead  to 
others,  bringing  in,  eventually,  an  income  adequate 
to  the  multitudinous  expenditures  of  modern  life. 

Were  this  the  attitude  of  mind  of  technological 
students  alone,  it  might  justify  —  or  at  least  ex- 
plain —  the  sometimes  supercilious  attitude  of  the 
college  of  "liberal  arts,"  and  might  support  its  con- 
tention that  its  atmosphere  is  broadly  cultural,  while 
that  of  the  college  of  science  is  narrowly  utilitarian. 
Under  modern  conditions,  however,  the  outlook  of 
all  collegians  is  practically  the  same;  for,  however 
fondly  the  older  institutions  may  cling  to  outworn 
forms  and  terms,  however  prominently  the  "human- 
ities" may  stand  out  in  their  prospectuses,  they  also 


THE  YOUNG  ENGINEER  283 

are,  in  truth,  colleges  of  modern  science  and  of  the 
application  of  science  to  commercial  and  industrial 
life.  The  cloistered  student  wrapped  in  love  of 
ancient  learning  is  still  to  be  found;  but  he  is  en- 
gulfed in  the  host  of  youth  who,  when  they  do  not  go 
to  college  simply  for  sociability  and  prestige,  regard 
higher  education  as  a  kind  of  trump  card  in  the 
game  of  money-making. 

More  or  less  unconsciously,  colleges  of  arts  and 
colleges  of  science  alike  foster  this  student  attitude 
of  mind  by  devoting  an  undue  share  of  the  academic 
year  to  examinations,  by  overloading  the  curriculum 
with  examinable  subjects,  and  by  permitting  the 
several  schools  or  departments  to  emphasize  the 
utilitarian  by  specializing  and  intensifying  too  much. 
As  a  result,  the  secondary  purpose  of  a  college  — 
that  of  instilling  information  —  too  often  bulks 
largest  in  the  eyes  of  all  concerned,  and  obscures 
or  even  eclipses  the  leading  aims  of  all  collegiate 
education. 

Those  major  aims  should  be,  in  the  order  of  their 
importance:  (i)  to  develop  manhood  out  of  boy- 
hood; (2)  to  make  the  men  thus  developed  broad- 
gauged,  mentally  quick  and  receptive,  intellectually 
catholic,  tolerant,  and  modest;  (3)  to  train  good 
citizens,  in  the  fullest  meaning  of  that  term;  and  (4) 
to  equip  for  industrial  and  professional  efficiency. 


284  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

To  accomplish  the  last  is  what  the  technological 
school  is  paid  especially  to  do;  but,  unless  that  pro- 
fessional training  is  given  in  such  a  way  as  to  supple- 
ment and  strengthen  in  the  highest  degree  all  the 
other  social  forces  which  are  making  for  manhood, 
breadth,  and  citizenship,  the  school  has  defrauded 
the  undergraduate,  has  failed  of  its  duty  as  a  social 
agent,  and  has  sealed  its  own  doom. 

Even  though  they  be  nineteen  or  twenty  years  of 
age,  most  youth  come  to  a  college  mere  boys  in 
their  childish  attitude  of  mind,  their  undeveloped 
sense  of  personal  responsibility,  their  hazy  outlook 
upon  life  and  their  distorted  perspective  of  them- 
selves in  the  community.  They  ought  to  be  gradu- 
ated, however,  with  their  minds  ripened  and  their 
vision  cleared.  Indeed,  the  years  of  their  college 
life  will  have  been  largely  wasted  unless,  in  those 
years,  they  have  acquired  a  mental  and  moral  se- 
riousness far  greater  Jihan  that  of  the  less  well- 
educated  man. 

Limiting  ourselves  to  the  school  of  applied  science, 
perhaps  its  paramount  duty  and  opportunity  is  to 
impress  upon  a  youth  as  he  enters  manhood  the  fact 
that  living,  instead  of  being  a  game  of  pleasure  or  of 
chance,  or  a  haphazard  acceptance  of  what  comes 
along,  is  an  actual  profession  —  is,  indeed,  the  lead- 
ing vocation  of  every  man  —  a  profession  to  be 


THE  YOUNG  ENGINEER  285 

studied,  perfected  and  strategically  planned  with 
interested  thoroughness  and  far-seeing  care.  This 
right  view  of  life  can  be  instilled,  not  only  by  giving 
the  college  youth  ever  wider  choice  of  work,  initia- 
tive in  working,  and  responsibility  for  the  quality  of 
his  work  (while  holding  him  to  a  rational  and  ordered 
sequence  of  development),  but  also  by  teaching  him 
such  things  and  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  him  in- 
creasingly aware  of  a  man's  power  over  circum- 
stance, and  of  the  multiform  opportunity  which 
every  individual  has  to  shape  his  own  career. 

Another  chief  use  of  the  education  given  in  a 
scientific  school  should  be  to  expand  a  young  man's 
vision,  to  teach  him  the  difference  between  the  small 
and  the  great  things  of  life,  to  train  him  to  see  the 
world  from  a  clear  mountain  peak  of  intellectual 
tolerance  rather  than  from  a  foggy  valley  of  personal 
prejudices.  This  breadth  and  catholicity  can  be 
inspired  by  building  all  his  professional  and  technical 
training  upon  basic  truths  and  principles;  by  fram- 
ing his  courses  of  study  upon  those  fundamental 
historical,  philosophical  and  linguistic  subjects  which 
(quite  too  exclusively)  made  up  the  college  course  of 
half  a  century  ago;  and,  most  of  all,  by  seeking  every 
opportunity  to  impress  upon  each  student  the  fact 
that  what  makes  for  leadership  and  power  in  pro- 
fessional life  is  not  familiarity  with  technical  details 


286  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

and  an  extraordinary  memory  for  formulae,  but 
ability  to  view  questions  in  a  large  way,  to  deal  with 
new  problems,  to  handle  subordinates  easily  and 
justly,  to  meet  equals  and  superiors  tactfully  and 
upon  the  broad  platform  of  many  human  as  well  as 
professional  interests. 

A  student  will  not  have  secured  seriousness  and 
breadth,  however,  if  on  graduation  he  believes  that 
his  professional  training  is  to  be  used  wholly  to 
satisfy  his  personal  —  and  very  proper  —  ambition 
for  power  and  for  wealth.  He  must  also  have  been 
made  to  realize  that,  being  an  extraordinary  debtor 
to  society,  he  owes  an  immense  debt  of  future  service 
to  the  community.  He  should  also  have  learned 
that  the  main  business  of  an  educated  man  is  to 
grow  into  wide  usefulness  by  practising  the  "gre- 
garious" virtues,  by  placing  his  abilities  as  far  as 
possible  at  the  service  of  his  neighborhood  and 
state,  by  increasing  the  five  talents  of  his  collegiate 
training  into  the  many  times  ten  talents  of  personal 
and  social  power.  To  this  end  his  technical  and  his 
non-technical  teaching  should  have  emphasized  those 
subtle,  unselfish,  moral  qualities  which  lie  at  the 
foundation  of  professional  ethics,  engineering  honor 
and  true  devotion  to  the  good  of  the  State. 

Whatever  may  be  the  sequence  of  studies,  the 
ramification  of  "electives,"  or  the  emphasis  upon 


THE  YOUNG  ENGINEER  287 

this  detail  or  upon  that,  the  student  should  never  be 
allowed  to  become  so  confused  by  these  minutiae  as 
to  lose  sight  of  what  he  goes  to  a  school  of  applied 
science  for.  In  the  student's  own  mind  he  goes 
primarily  to  obtain  certain  information,  a  measure 
of  technical  skill  and  a  scientific  jargon  which  will 
enable  him  to  secure  and  to  hold  some  remunerative 
professional  position.  If  this  mental  attitude  is 
not  rectified,  or  is  encouraged  by  the  placing  of  too 
much  emphasis  upon  technical  information, 
"knacks,"  formulae,  and  phrases,  the  youth  will 
devote  himself  zealously,  even  enthusiastically  — 
but  none  the  less  fatally  —  to  things  which,  without 
the  higher  aims,  are  but  the  chaff  of  education. 
The  strongest  evidence  of  a  freshman's  lack  of 
education  is  that  he  does  not  know  how  to  appraise 
those  tasks  which  he  must  or  may  do,  that  he  does 
not  understand  what  the  world  is  going  to  demand 
of  him  as  the  price  of  real  professional  success. 

To  educate  him,  therefore  —  in  the  right  meaning 
of  education  —  the  school  of  applied  science  must 
not  content  itself  with  giving  him  that  technical 
information  which,  to  his  untrained  vision,  is  all 
that  he  requires;  it  must  hold  before  him  and  must 
teach  him  to  understand  the  value  and  importance 
of  those  higher  standards  by  which  his  work  as 
a  man  and  as  an  engineer  will  be  judged  by  his 


288  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

future  employers,  by  his  associates  and  by  the  world 
at  large.  He  cannot  foresee,  therefore  he  must 
deliberately  be  made  to  appreciate,  that  behind  and 
underneath  his  technical  information  and  scientific 
skill  he  should  possess  at  least  three  other  things:  , 
seriousness  of  view,  breadth  of  mind  and  a  sense  of 
civic  responsibility.  With  the  first  he  will  learn 
how  to  measure  and  control  his  own  life;  with  the 
second  he  will  learn  how  to  weigh  the  lives  of  others; 
with  the  third  he  will  learn  how  to  place  himself 
and  all  he  does  in  right  perspective  with  the  whole 
order  of  society;  and  with  all  three  together  he  will 
be  ready  to  meet  and  conquer  practically  every  one 
of  those  problems,  moral,  social,  or  technical,  with 
which  his  life  is  certain  to  be  filled. 

To  keep  these  large  purposes  and  true  aims  of 
education  before  themselves  and  their  students  is 
extremely  difficult  for  the  teaching  staff,  engrossed 
as  they  must  necessarily  be  in  the  thousand  details 
of  teaching  and  discipline,  and  hounded  as  they  are 
from  without  and  within  to  equip  their  students 
(like  automobiles)  with  every  latest  device  for 
technical  speed  and  efficiency.  That  the  faculties 
of  most  schools  of  technology  have  been  able  to 
preserve  the  wider  view  is  cause  for  wonder  and  con- 
gratulation. With  the  greater  specialization  and 
haste  of  modern  life,  however,  they  will  find  this  to 


THE  YOUNG  ENGINEER  289 

be  increasingly  difficult  unless  they  receive  organized 
and  unflagging  help  from  those  who  stand  far 
enough  from  the  details  of  instruction  to  see  that 
teaching  in  proper  perspective  and  to  measure  its 
real  results.  The  two  bodies  near  enough  to  the 
school  of  applied  science  to  understand  its  internal 
methods  and  aims,  and  yet  far  enough  away  from  it 
to  gauge  its  final  influence  upon  young  men  and  its 
ultimate  effect  upon  the  industrial  and  social  struct- 
ure, are,  of  course,  the  trustees  and  the  alumni.  In 
every  way  possible  they  should  identify  themselves 
with  their  college  and  its  undergraduates;  and,  while 
refraining  from  interference  with  the  details  of 
courses  or  of  teaching,  should  keep  clearly  before 
the  students  those  real  aims  and  ends  of  all  higher 
education  which  their  experience  of  life  should  have 
made  them  clearly  see.  Just  how  they  are  to  do  this 
is  not  within  the  present  scope  even  to  suggest. 
Moreover,  no  two  colleges  of  science  would  ap- 
proach the  problem  in  the  same  way.  But  that 
these  high  standards  must  be  held  before  the  under- 
graduates of  all  such  colleges,  and  that  the  trustees 
and  alumni  must  give  conspicuous  help  in  doing  so, 
are,  I  think,  self-evident  truths  in  higher  education. 


THE  New  Englander  who  can  boast  seven 
generations  of  native  forebears  —  and  this 
number  is  a  rare  possession  —  is  inclined  to 
speak   with   some   disdain  of   "New  Americans." 
Many  immigrants  who  have  arrived  more  recently 
than  he  certainly  do  need  much  Americanizing;  but 
so  did  the  Old  Americans  from  whom  he  sprang. 
Moreover,  that  process  occupied,  in  the  case  of  those 
earlier  comers,  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty-five 
years  —  from  1620  until  1775. 

Things  move  faster  now  than  then;  therefore  the 
present  New  Americans  will  doubtless  learn  their 
lesson  far  more  rapidly.  Moreover,  certain  special 
causes  modified  and  to  a  degree  retarded  the  democ- 
ratization of  the  first  generations  of  immigrants, 
keeping  the  New  England  ancestry,  as  has  been 
aptly  said,  not  merely  provincial  but  painfully 
parochial.  Potent  among  those  influences  was 
that-satan-inspired  invention  of  some  early  Puritan 
—  New  England  Pie. 

ago 


2QI 

The  thing  itself  is  today  but  a  reminiscence. 
Pie  still  exists,  but  its  estate  is  fallen.  From  the 
hands  of  the  housemother  it  has  passed  to  the 
machines  of  the  syndicated  bakery,  from  the  break- 
fast table  of  Emerson  it  has  descended  to  the 
quick-lunch  counter.  No  longer  may  one  find  three 
kinds  of  pie  served  three  times  a  day;  no  longer  may 
one  see  at  Thanksgiving  pantry  shelves  groaning 
with  pies  in  military  array:  artillery  squads  of 
brilliant  cranberry,  cavalry  squads  of  yellow  pump- 
kin, and  solid  infantry  of  apple  and  mince. 

For  generations,  however,  pie  was  the  fundamental 
diet  of  the  New  Englander,  as  rice  was  that  of  the 
Japanese,  and  it  had  a  profound  physiological  and 
moral  effect.  Deficient  in  nutriment,  it  bred  a  lean 
and  hungry  race,  "cantankerous"  and  hair-splitting. 
A  fertile  and  progressive  source  of  dyspepsia,  it 
established  the  gloom  of  Calvinism  and  fomented 
those  schisms  with  which  most  New  England 
villages  have  been  ceaselessly  rent.  A  difficult  dish 
rightly  to  prepare,  it  established  social  cleavage 
between  those  who  could  and  those  who  could  not 
produce  light  pie-crust;  and  it  actually  made  or 
marred  the  married  state.  Moreover,  it  named 
society  itself,  the  term  "upper  crust"  connoting 
surface  show  and  crumbling  flakiness  as  contrasted 
with  the  soggy  dulness  of  that  under  crust  upon 


292  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

which,  however,  the  whole  stability,  not  only  of 
pie,  but  of  society  depends. 

Singularly,  however,  the  pie  metaphor  did  not 
extend  itself  farther.  It  did  not  occur  to  our  an- 
cestors to  apply  the  pie  form  to  their  daily  living. 
Not  one  of  those  early  New  Englanders  realized 
that,  just  as  the  rich  juiciness  of  the  pie  gathers 
at  the  centre,  so  the  houses  of  those  pioneers  should 
have  all  been  located  in  a  central  village,  with  farms 
radiating  therefrom  in  pie-shaped  wedges. 

It  is  true  that  our  forebears  usually  established  a 
stockade  for  physical  refuge  against  the  occasional 
Indian  and  a  meeting-house  for  spiritual  refuge 
against  omnipresent  satan;  and  it  is  true,  too,  that 
around  these  grew  up  a  few  stores,  taverns,  and 
dwellings.  But  the  great  bulk  of  those  early  people 
lived  on  widely  scattered  farms  separated  one  from 
another  by  long  spaces  of  wilderness,  difficult  and 
dangerous  to  cross. 

And  on  their  scattered  farms  those  Old  Ameri- 
cans ate  their  pie  in  gloomy  and  censorious  iso- 
lation, ruining  their  digestions,  inflaming  their  con- 
sciences, and  developing  the  family  idiosyncrasies 
until  the  chronicles  of  some  New  England  towns 
read  like  the  records  of  a  hospital  for  the  mildly 
insane! 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  the   original    settlers  took 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THESE  DEMANDS       293 

this  step  so  fatal  to  themselves  and  so  momentous 
to  their  descendants.  Most  of  them  came  from 
England,  where  the  sign  of  aristocracy  and  wealth 
was  the  possession  of  land.  The  first  idea,  therefore, 
of  every  one  of  those  early  immigrants,  immediately 
upon  landing,  was  to  procure  by  grant,  by  alleged 
purchase  from  the  Indians,  or  by  simple  squatting, 
as  much  land  as  he  possibly  could  seize,  and  then  to 
seat  himself  in  the  middle  of  that  vast  acreage  as  far 
away  as  possible  from  other  squatters  themselves 
obsessed  by  the  same  foolish  idea. 

It  is  idle  to  speculate  upon  what  might  have  been; 
but  think  what  a  difference  it  would  have  made  in 
all  our  history  had  those  Old  Americans  taken  to 
heart  the  simple  lesson  taught  not  only  by  their  own 
beloved  pie,  but  even  by  the  barbaric  Russian, 
and  had  gathered  themselves  into  close-built  vil- 
lages, with  the  farms  extending  out  therefrom  as 
far  as  the  Indians  would  let  them.  Not  only  would 
most  of  the  dreadful  massacres  of  colonial:  days  have 
been  averted,  not  only  would  their  meeting-houses 
have  been  more  cheerful  and  their  schools  far  better 
than  when  worshippers  and  pupils  were  compelled 
to  come  together  from  long  distances  through 
dangerous  wildernesses;  but  the  daily  contact  of 
village  life  would  have  wonderfully  rubbed  off 
Puritanical  sharp  corners,  brightened  dour  Calvin- 


294  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

istic  faces,  modified  the  extraordinary  idiosyncrasies 
of  the  Yankees,  and  made  them,  perhaps,  regard 
more  charitably  the  rest  of  the  human  race. 

That  there  was  a  period  of  decline,  almost  of 
degradation,  in  the  history  of  American  schools, 
we  are  apt  to  forget  or  to  conceal.  With  justifiable 
pride  we  of  Massachusetts  point  to  those  great 
educational  events  of  the  early  Puritan  days:  (i) 
the  opening  of  the  Latin  School  in  1635;  (2)  tne 
founding  of  Harvard  College  in  1638;  and  (3)  the 
enacting  of  the  general  school  law  of  1647;  but  we  fail 
to  remark  that  the  development  of  education  in  the 
United  States  has  not  been  a  steady  growth  out  of 
those  magnificent  beginnings.  That  the  American 
school  should  not  have  gone  through  its  "Dark 
Ages"  period  would  have  been  to  ask  a  miracle. 
A  people  which  had  to  conquer  a  wilderness,  to  wage 
war  with  savages  and  beasts,  to  beat  back  the  French, 
to  separate  itself  politically  from  the  mother  coun- 
try, and,  finally,  to  put  into  shape  and  into  practice 
the  political  and  social  ideals  evolved  from  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  of  transplanted  Puritanism,  could 
not  keep  education,  in  the  narrower  sense  of  school- 
ing, upon  a  very  high  plane.  Those  builders  of 
a  nation  were  too  busy  acquiring  the  rough,  but 
enduring,  tuition  given  by  the  very  forces  I  have 
named,  to  spend  much  thought  upon  such  trifles 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THESE  DEMANDS       295 

as  reading,  writing,  and  arithmetic.  Their  edu- 
cation into  nationality  was  more  vital  to  them  than 
national  education,  and  before  the  strenuousness 
of  the  former  the  latter,  perforce,  gave  way.  There- 
fore it  is  not  surprising  that,  while  in  1650  almost 
every  leader  in  New  England  life  was  college-bred, 
and  many  a  youth  was  conversant  with  Latin  and 
with  Greek,  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  later 
the  little  learning  that  survived  had  shrunk  away 
into  the  studies  of  ministers,  lawyers,  and  the  oc- 
casional physician.  Outside  those  professions,  he 
(and  especially  she)  who  could  read  and  write  was  the 
exception  rather  than  the  rule. 

This  widespread  illiteracy  was  due  not  wholly 
to  the  fight  against  the  wilderness,  not  wholly  to 
the  fact  that  the  grandsons  and  great-grandsons 
of  the  first  settlers  had,  through  isolation,  lost  touch 
with  things  intellectual.  It  was  due  mainly  to  that 
early  spirit  of  exaggerated  local  independence. 
Those  early  Yankee  communities  were  disastrously 
centrifugal.  No  town  was  too  feeble  or  too  sparsely 
settled  in  colonial  days  for  its  town-meeting  to 
pass  stringent  laws  excluding  newcomers;  and 
the  grants  and  purchases  of  those  first  settlers 
were  pathetically  huge.  The  tendency  of  all  this, 
of  course,  was  to  divide  and  subdivide  townships 
into  little  hostile  groups,  and  to  foment  ceaseless 


296  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

war  between  the  centre  where  the  church  was  and 
the  outlying  districts  where  the  church  was  not. 
Very  early  in  the  eighteenth  century  this  feeling 
began  to  color  the  school  laws,  and  by  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century  the  tendency  had 
gone  so  far  that  in  most  towns  the  meagre  sum 
raised  by  taxation  for  the  support  of  the  schools  was 
parceled  out  in  pitiful  fragments  among  so-called 
school  districts,  each  fragment  to  be  expended  by  a 
separate  and  local  prudential  committee.  Mr. 
Martin,  in  his  "Evolution  of  the  Massachusetts 
Public  School  System,"  gives  an  instance  where  the 
sum  to  support  a  district  school  for  an  entire  year 
was  $5.60. 

Feeble  as  such  an  educational  system  as  this 
must  have  been,  that  love  of  learning  which  was 
as  a  beacon  light  to  the  early  New  Englanders 
had  been  kept  burning  in  the  colleges  and  in  a  few 
academies  like  Dummer,  and  had  been  fanned  by 
those  real  political  leaders  of  New  England,  its 
autocratic  ministry.  As  order  began  to  come  out 
of  the  political  chaos  following  the  Revolution,  those 
ministers,  the  other  college  men,  and  the  more 
thoughtful  among  persons  of  less  education  realized 
that  something  must  be  done  to  revive  popular 
education,  that  some  bridge  must  be  made  between 
the  feeble  "deestrict"  schools  and  the  only  less 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THESE  DEMANDS        297 

feeble  colleges.  Academies,  founded,  as  a  rule,  by 
private  beneficence  and  supported  by  the  fees  of 
their  pupils,  sprang  up  in  many  widely  separated 
towns  and  were  as  oases  in  the  desert  to  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  ambitious  boys  and  girls.  But, 
of  course,  as  private  academies  flourished  the  already 
starving  public  schools  languished  still  more,  and  in 
many  instances  practically  died.  Therefore,  while 
ultimately  the  academy  proved  to  be  the  leaven 
in  the  educational  lump,  its  immediate  effect,  too 
often,  was  to  increase  the  ignorance  of  the  mass  of 
the  people  and  to  emphasize  class  distinctions  al- 
ready growing  dangerous.  Yet  the  work  of  the 
academies  was  not  only  good,  it  was  indispensable. 
For  almost  all  advance  in  public  education  in  Amer- 
ica has  to  be  made  through  three  slow  processes: 
first,  private  enterprise  must  be  enlisted  to  set  up 
a  model  school,  or  to  inaugurate,  at  private  charge, 
some  new  method  of  teaching;  secondly,  the  public 
authorities  must  be  coaxed  to  recognize  this  in- 
novation as  good  and  to  give  it  countenance; 
thirdly,  the  great  public  itself  must  be  stimulated 
to  force  those  authorities  to  adopt,  as  a  public 
enterprise,  what  was  in  the  beginning  a  suspiciously 
regarded  educational  experiment.  Following  this 
slow  road  of  development,  the  better  way  of  edu- 
cation was  pointed  out  by  those  private  enterprises, 


298          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

the  old  academies;  next  the  state  gave  them  semi- 
sanction  by  occasional  aid  and  official  recognition; 
finally  the  state  adopted  them,  either  by  converting 
them  directly  into  public  high  schools,  or  by  erect- 
ing such  high  schools  alongside  them  in  order  to  kill 
them  by  a  process  of  gradual  absorption.  And  it  is 
greatly  to  their  credit  that  those  academies,  having 
performed  their  essential  part  in  the  educational 
work,  knew  when  they  were  dead.  Of  course  many 
survived;  but  they  have  gone  back  to  what  was 
the  original  function  of  the  academy  —  that  of 
preparing  boys  for  entrance  into  certain  affiliated 
colleges. 

With  the  passing  of  the  academies,  however,  was 
severed  almost  the  last  link  between  English  and 
American  methods  of  education.  Our  New  Eng- 
land educational  glory  of  the  seventeenth  century 
was  predominantly  English.  Our  colleges  of  that 
early  day  were  Cambridge  University  transplanted; 
our  Latin  schools  were  the  familiar  grammar  schools 
still  flourishing  in  England  to  the  despair  of  the 
educational  reformer;  our  general  school  law  of 
1647  was  simply  the  school  law  that  England  might 
have  had  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  earlier  than 
she  did  secure  it,  had  she  remained  really  Puritan. 
But  the  glory  of  that  educational  Renaissance  of 
ours  which  began  in  the  second  quarter  of  the 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THESE  DEMANDS       299 

nineteenth  century  and  which  is  but  just  ending 
was  a  glory  not  of  England,  but  of  Germany.  Our 
whole  free-school  system  in  modern  days  has  been 
created,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  upon  Conti- 
nental, not  upon  English,  models.  To-day,  how- 
ever, we  are  beginning  to  construct  a  new  and  dis- 
tinctively American  educational  ideal,  an  ideal 
that  has  taken,  or  will  take,  all  that  is  best  from 
Germany,  from  France,  from  Scandinavia,  from 
the  Netherlands,  from  Great  Britain,  and,  vivifying 
this  with  our  truest  American  aspirations,  will 
evolve  a  really  national  education  adapted  to  our 
distinctive  political  ideas,  to  our  unique  moral 
standards,  to  our  virile,  cosmopolitan  race. 

For  the  greater  part  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
there  is  no  question  that  Massachusetts,  Connecti- 
cut and  New  York  were  in  the  van  of  educational 
advance,  and  that  among  those  three  Massachusetts 
stood  first.  And  what  a  difficult  advance  it  was! 
To-day  we  can  hardly  realize  the  long,  slow,  ex- 
asperating fight  required  to  secure  the  adoption  of 
what  seem  now  fundamental  principles  of  schooling. 
The  fight  meant  legislation,  it  meant  education  of 
those  who  were  to  educate,  it  meant  —  hardest  of 
all  —  the  arousing  of  the  people  to  the  need  and 
importance  of  educational  reform.  Such  work  as 
this  can  be  done  only  by  tireless,  fearless,  infinitely 


300  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

patient  leaders;  and  splendid  champions  of  that 
type  appeared  in  James  G.  Carter  and  Horace  Mann 
of  Massachusetts,  and  in  Henry  Barnard  of  Con- 
necticut. The  special  work  of  Carter  was  in  per- 
suading the  Massachusetts  Legislature  to  create  a 
Board  of  Education  and  to  give  sanction  to  state 
normal  schools.  The  special  work  of  Horace  Mann, 
as  first  secretary  of  that  State  Board  of  Education, 
was  in  exhibiting  by  figures  and  through  startling 
illustrations,  the  educational  poverty  of  his  state, 
in  making  the  people  appreciate  their  school  short- 
comings, and  in  issuing  reports  that  were  direct 
appeals  to  those  people,  reports  that  are  a*id  always 
will  be  classics  in  education.  The  special  work  of 
Henry  Barnard  was  in  doing  for  Connecticut  and 
Rhode  Island  what  Mann  did  for  Massachusetts, 
and  also  in  bringing  before  Americans,  through  his 
monumental  "Journal  of  Education,"  the  best 
pedagogical  thought  and  experience  of  Europe. 
How  those  men  and  others  like  them  labored,  it  is 
difficult  for  us  to-day  to  appreciate.  The  apathy, 
the  niggardliness,  the  conservatism  they  had  to  meet 
were  appalling.  They  had,  first,  to  destroy  the 
district  system  which  was  killing  the  already  feeble 
public  schools;  and  in  opposing  that  they  had  to 
fight  one  of  the  dearest  traditions  of  the  American 
people.  They  had  to  persuade  legislatures,  and 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THESE  DEMANDS       301 

that,  many  of  us  know,  is  heartbreaking  work. 
They  had  to  convince  teachers  of  their  ignorance 
of  the  true  science  and  art  of  teaching;  and  that  was 
—  and  is  —  no  easy  task.  Most  of  all,  they  had  to 
educate  the  people  to  understand  the  value  of  free 
public  education  conducted  by  persons  who  are 
fit  to  teach. 

Mr.  Mann  found,  when  he  entered  upon  his 
duties,  that  42,000  children  in  Massachusetts  did  not 
attend  school  at  all,  and  that  of  those  who  did,  the 
average  attendance  was  only  seventeen  weeks.  He 
found  those  children  housed  in  school  buildings 
scarcely  fit  for  swine.  He  discovered  most  school 
committees  to  be  ignorant  and  slothful,  most  teach- 
ers to  be  ill-trained  and  worse  paid.  There  was  little 
but  chaos  in  the  curricula  and  more  than  chaos  in 
the  methods  and  means  of  teaching.  He  found  the 
schools  rent  by  sectarian  jealousies,  and,  most 
serious  of  all,  he  found  the  towns  divided  into  hos- 
tile camps,  each  district  spending  its  pittance  as  it 
pleased,  choosing  its  teachers  by  methods  worse 
than  haphazard,  and  opposing  all  change  and  im- 
provement with  the  fanatic  fierceness  of  a  puffed-up 
ignorance.  To  all  these  evils  and  to  many  more  he 
devoted  his  annual  reports  as  secretary,  supple- 
menting them  by  lectures,  by  teachers'  gatherings, 
by  appeals  of  every  kind  which  his  zeal  and  knowl- 


302  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

edge  could  devise.  The  good  work  thus  started 
was  carried  on  by  equally  active  successors  in  the 
Board  of  Education,  and  by  others  interested  in  the 
schools,  until,  little  by  little,  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts had  established  compulsory  education 
and  child  labor  laws;  had  secured  truancy  laws 
and  parental  schools  to  make  compulsion  effective; 
had  founded  normal  schools  to  educate  the  teachers; 
had  achieved  free  high  schools  and  manual  training 
schools;  had  compelled  expert  supervision;  and  — 
greatest  achievement  of  all  —  had  aroused  public 
opinion  in  the  towns  and  cities  to  the  point  where 
the  people  house  their  schools  well,  pay  their  teach- 
ers better  than  they  used,  demand  educated  super- 
vision and  modern  methods  of  teaching,  and,  for  all 
these  things,  pay  ten  times  as  much,  fifty  times  as 
much,  in  some  cases  more  than  a  hundred  times  as 
much,  as  they  did  half  a  century  ago.  Although 
there  are,  of  course,  great  differences  among  the 
many  towns  of  the  Commonwealth,  it  is  now  at 
least  nominally  required  that  every  child  in  Massa- 
chusetts shall  attend  school  until  his  fourteenth 
year;  shall  be  schooled  in  a  building  having  a  pre- 
scribed minimum  of  space,  light,  and  air;  shall  be 
taught  by  persons  having  at  least  some  fitness  for  the 
work  of  instruction;  and  that  the  work  of  those 
teachers  shall  be  supervised  by  men  or  women  who 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THESE  DEMANDS       303 

have  made  of  education  a  real  profession.  More- 
over, the  laws  require  communities  to  maintain 
high  schools,  and  to  provide  free  text-books;  they 
compel  large  towns  and  cities  to  establish  manual 
training  and  evening  schools;  they  foster  and  sub- 
sidize industrial  education;  and  in  many  other 
directions  the  state,  by  statute  and  by  penalties, 
acknowledges  the  high  importance  to  the  commu- 
nity of  free  public  education  rightly  carried  on.  But 
the  best  of  it  is  that  public  sentiment  and  public 
generosity  are  running  ahead  of  the  laws  themselves, 
so  that,  to  quote  from  Mr.  Martin,  writing  a  num- 
ber of  years  ago,  "while  the  compulsory  law  re- 
quires towns  to  raise  $3  for  each  child  of  school  age, 
they  voluntarily  raise  an  average  of  $24.67.  While 
they  must  keep  their  schools  open  six  months,  they 
do  voluntarily  keep  them  open  eight  and  a  half 
months." 

I  have  dealt  solely  with  Massachusetts  because 
on  her  sterile  hills  has  been  enacted  practically 
the  whole  drama  of  American  educational  progress. 
To-day,  however,  most  of  the  Northern  and  Western 
States  have  school  laws  comparable  with  those  of 
Massachusetts;  and  many  of  the  states  of  the  rich, 
"hustling"  Middle  West  have  gone  far  beyond  her 
in  spending  money  upon  education,  in  making 
schooling  free  to  the  very  end  of  the  university,  in 


304  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

adopting  methods  of  administration,  means  of 
instruction,  and  opportunities  for  the  thorough  edu- 
cation of  teachers  far  beyond  what  the  old  Bay 
State  has  done. 

Stupendous  and  far-reaching,  however,  as  was 
the  progress  of  Northern  and  Western  schools  in 
the  fifty  years  following  1840,  that  growth  estab- 
lished only  what  one  may  call  the  machinery  of  free 
public  education.  And  like  most  of  our  machinery 
at  that  time,  much  of  this  educational  mechanism 
was  made  abroad.  Moreover,  a  great  deal  of  it, 
as  has  been  said,  was  "made  in  Germany"  by  a 
people  of  a  wholly  different  temperament  and 
quality  of  mind  from  ours.  So,  while  it  was  es- 
sential that  our  American  schools  should  be  thus 
organized,  while  it  was  inevitable  that  we  should 
copy,  more  or  less  closely,  the  aims  and  methods  of 
German  and  other  foreign  schools,  it  is  clear  that 
in  many  ways  this  alien  machinery  does  not  fit  our 
needs,  does  not  do  and  cannot  do  for  us  what  free 
public  education  can  and  should  accomplish.  As 
the  Commissioner  of  Education  said,  only  a  few 
years  ago:  "The  transformation  of  an  illiterate 
population  into  one  that  reads  the  daily  newspaper, 
and  perforce  thinks  on  national  and  international 
interests,  is  thus  far  the  greatest  good  accomplished 
by  the  free  public-school  system  of  the  United 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THESE  DEMANDS       305 

States. "  But  that  is  not  enough  for  it  ultimately 
to  do. 

The  new  education,  therefore,  instead  of  turning 
back  or  looking  abroad  for  guidance,  is  studying  into 
the  real  purposes  and  ends  of  the  teaching  of  to-day 
and  here.  It  is  striving  to  learn  the  laws  of  or- 
ganic education :  the  laws,  that  is,  of  mental  devel- 
opment, of  sense  coordination,  of  psychical  interest; 
the  laws  of  physical,  mental,  and  moral  health; 
above  all,  it  is  endeavoring  to  find  out  the  social 
needs  of  the  times  and  to  develop  types  of  education 
which  shall  meet  those  needs.  Upon  these,  not 
upon  custom  and  prejudice,  the  new  education  is 
developing  its  methods;  by  these,  not  by  outworn, 
conventional  standards,  it  is  measuring  its  teaching 
results. 

The  best  modern  education  aims  above  all  things 
to  help  the  child  put  himself  into  harmony  with 
eternal  law;  and  it  does  this  by  training  him  in  the 
care  of  his  body,  in  the  development  and  use  of  his 
senses,  in  the  control  of  his  intellectual  and  moral 
will.  In  the  light  of  the  new  education,  we  teach 
him,  not  as  a  pupil,  but  as  a  human  being;  we  use 
as  the  spur  of  education,  not  compulsion,  but  in- 
terest and  sympathy;  we  strive  not  to  mold  the 
child  from  without,  but  to  develop  him  from  within; 
we  spend  less  time  in  laying  out  courses  of  study, 


3o6          NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

we  spend  more  time  in  creating  an  educative  at- 
mosphere. We  are  perceiving,  in  short,  that  edu- 
cation is  a  process  of  evolution  different  for  each 
individual  pupil,  and  that  the  business  of  the  school 
is  to  direct  and  to  bring  to  the  highest  possible 
point  for  every  child  this  individual  process  of 
development. 

So  we  are  beginning  to  agree,  I  think,  upon  the 
following  main  truths  in  education:  (i)  that  we 
must  educate  individuals,  not  masses;  (2)  that  we 
must  educate  by  sympathy,  not  by  compulsion; 
(3)  that  we  must  reckon  with  and  must- enlist  all 
the  social  forces  —  of  which  the  school  is  but  one  — 
that  are  molding  the  child's  life;  (4)  that  we  must 
strive  for  "balance"  —  that  is,  for  a  simultaneous, 
harmonious  development  of  body,  mind  and  soul; 
(5)  that  we  must  ever  keep  in  view,  as  the  supreme 
goal  of  education,  the  child's  social  and  moral  life. 

The  corollaries  of  these  main  propositions  are, 
of  course,  obvious.  If  we  are  to  educate  individuals, 
not  masses,  we  must  have  small  classes;  if  we  are 
to  educate  by  sympathy,  we  must  have  teachers 
trained  to  understand  and  to  practise  this  higher 
way  of  teaching;  if  we  are  to  take  into  account  all 
the  social  forces  that  surround  the  child,  we  must 
educate  those  forces  —  the  family,  the  community, 
the  church  —  to  understand  and  to  perform  their 


THE  GENESIS  OF  THESE  DEMANDS       307 

share  in  education;  if  we  are  to  aim  for  balance  in 
education,  we  must  reform  our  curricula,  must 
enlarge  the  uses  of  the  schoolhouse,  must  spend 
three  and  four  and  ten  times  as  much  upon  our 
schools  as  we  to-day  provide.  If  we  are  to  make 
morality  the  supreme  end  of  education,  we  must 
ourselves  live  better  lives,  we  must  make  our  cities 
and  our  towns  more  decent  places  in  which  to  rear 
a  child. 

Broadly  speaking,  then,  the  conditions  essential 
to  a  real  education  are:  stimulating,  healthful, 
moral  surroundings  for  the  child  everywhere  and 
every  day;  less  of  politics  and  meddling,  more  of 
the  true  science  and  art  of  education  in  the  average 
school;  small  classes,  in  which  each  child  may  be 
really  educated  as  an  individual  human  being; 
well-educated  teachers  in  every  grade,  and  a  strong 
professional  spirit  in  the  whole  teaching  staff; 
genuine  and  unflagging  cooperation  on  the  part  of 
the  fathers  and  the  mothers;  and  much  more 
generous  support  from  the  public  to  whom  the 
public  schools  belong.  To  secure  these  things  and 
to  build  from  them  the  new  American  education  is 
to  be  the  absorbing  work  of  the  twentieth  century. 
It  is  a  stupendous  task  to  perform;  but  whether  it 
be  done  or  whether  it  be  not  done  means  life  or 
death  to  these  United  States.  And  hopeless  as  it 


3o8  NEW  DEMANDS  IN  EDUCATION 

may  now  appear,  the  task  will  have  been  accom- 
plished if  the  end  of  the  twentieth  century  sees 
education  as  far  ahead  of  to-day  as  to-day's  best 
standards  are  in  advance  of  the  crude  and  feeble 
schooling  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century. 


THE    END 


INDEX 


Academies,  203,  296 
Adolescence,   82,    189,    203,    206, 

210,     214 

Agricultural    vs.   industrial    edu- 
cation, 45,  237 
Aimlessness  in  education,  86,  91, 

94 

Apprenticeship,  45,  no,  240 
Aristocratic  education,  87 
Arithmetic,  34,  101,  166 
Arts,  fine  vs.  useful,  261 
Average  child,  38,  65,  79,  215 
Avocation,  necessity  for,  276 

Bacon,  Francis  (quoted),  272,  279 

BaB,  John,  237 

Barnard,  Henry,  300 

Baron  de  Hirsch  Trade  School, 

119 

Boston  Trade  School,  zap 
Bread  and  butter  education,  119 
Browning,  Robert  (quoted),   256 
Buildings,  22,  24,  40,  57,  164,  301 
Business  agent,  63 
Business  organization,  54,  56,  59, 

63 

"Captains   of   Industry,"    125 

Carlyle  (quoted),  44 

Carter,  James  G.,  300 

Caste  system,  115 

Centennial  Exposition,  264 

Child-study,  41,  93 

Church  education,  30,  45,  224 

Citizenship,   158,    160,    168,   171, 

209 
Citizenship,  education  for,  12,  31, 

40,  47,  59,9°,i'i22, 157, 164, 169, 

187,  210,  283 


Civic  duties,   150,  155,  288 

Collecting  mania,  228 

College  entrance  requirements,  3, 

16,  203,  212 
College  graduates,  81 

College  influence  on  education, 
IS,  iQ,  95,  "5,  189,  203,  283, 
289 

Concentration,  101,  166,  176 

Conservation  of  human  power, 
6,  107,  124,  198 

Continuation  schools,  in 

Cooper  Union,  in 

Coordination,  245,  254 

Correctional  institutions,  19 

Correspondence  schools,  no 

Cost  of  education,  7 

Courage,  true,   155 

Craftsmanship,  238,  250,  255 

Creativeness,  247,  255 

Criminals,  manufacturing  of,  67 

Culture,  87,  122,  130,  251 

Curiosity,  216,  220,  229 

Defectives,  168 
Democracy,  47,  51,  54 
Development  the  aim  of  education, 

17,  163,  188,  210,  283,  306 
Discipline,  13,  172,  178,  184,  194, 

209 

Disease,  21,  79,  167 
District  schools,   296 
Drexel  Institute,  in 

Education,  aimlessness  in,  86,  91, 

94 

Education,  college  influence  on, 
IS,  19,  9S,  "5,  189,  203,  283, 
289 


309 


INDEX 


Education,  cost  of,  7 
Education,   efficiency  in,   7,   17, 

22,  29,  42,  47,  63,  281 
Education  for  citizenship,  12,  31, 

40,  47,  59,  9°,  I22»    157,    164, 

169,  187,  210,  283 
Education,  free,  26,  70,  143,  302 
Education,  health,  18,  42,  47,  50, 

loo,  106,  132,  167 
Education,  machinery  of,  57, 59, 68 
Education    vs.    instruction,     27, 

29,  42,  65,   157,   278,   283 
Educational  engineers,  20 
Efficiency  in  education,  7,  17,  22, 

29,  42,  47,  63,  281 
Elective  principle,  96,  182,  199 
Engineering,  profession  of,   72 
English  public  schools,  86,  298 
Equality,  37 
Erudition,  273 

Evolution,  dominance  of,  49,  306 
Examination  system,  15,  115,  205, 

283 
Experts,  68 

Faculties  for  schools,  24,  66 

Family,  the,  93,  150 

Farm  education,  5 

Feeble-mindedness,  43 

Formal  discipline,  209 

Free  education,  26,  70,  143,  302 

Friends,  137 

"Gang-spirit,"  216,  219,  235 

Geography,  34,  166 

German  efficiency,  114 

Goal  in  education,  18,  86,  91,  158, 

306 

Graft,  8,  23 
Grammar,  34 
Gumption,  4,  101,  105,  133,  167 

Habit,  177 

Health  education,  18,  42,  47,  50, 

100,  106,  132,  167 
Henry  of  Prussia,  Prince,  125 
High  school  courses,  3,  94,  103, 

107,  118,  215 


High  schools,  186,  191,  202 
History,  34,  166,  208 
History  of  education,  78,  84 
Home  study,  104,  232 
Home  training,  5,  30,  45,  194,  227 
Human  intercourse,  134,  250,  278, 
286 

Illiteracy  in  New  England,   295 

Immigration,  46 

Individuality,  14,  32,  39,  69,  75, 

80,  84,  92,  97,  189,  197,  216, 

221,  249,  306 
Industrial  training,   18,   24,   109, 

119,  123,  242,  259,  269 
Industries  and  education,  19,  116 
Inefficiency,  167 
Infant,  the  176 
Instruction    vs.    education,     27, 

29,  42,  65,  157,  278,  283 

Johnson,    Samuel    (quoted),    248 
"Journal  of  Education,"  300 

Kindergarten,  the,  85 

Labor  unions,  122 
Laboratory  methods,  247 
Latin  grammar,  173 
Law,  obedience  to,  49 
Law,  profession  of,  72 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  52 
Lowell  Free  School,  in 

Machinery  of  education,  57,  59, 
68 

Manhattan  Trade  School,  119 

Mann,  Horace,  300, 

Manners,  103 

Manual  training,  18,  24,  91,  101, 
106,  109,  116,  166,  245,  253, 
257,  267 

Manual  training,  Russian  sys- 
tem of,  266, 

Manufacturing,  238 

Martin,  George  H.  (quoted), 
296,  303 

Mechanical  methods,  97,  249,  281 


INDEX 


Mechanic  arts,  238,  266 
Medicine,  profession  of,  72,  77,  280 
Moral  cowardice,  48 
Moral  education,  42,  45,  49,  83, 

100,  148, 163, 168,  215,  223,  231, 

253 

Neighborhood,  the,  93 

Nervous  strain,  217 

New  Education,  the,  38,  95,  173, 

180,  305 

New  England  education,  87,  292 
Normal  schools,  23 

Parental   responsibility,    27,    194 
Parenthood,    education    for,    47, 

229 

Parker,    Theodore    (quoted),    52 
Partnership,  social,  55 
Patriotism,  34,  140,  149,  150,  155 
Patriots,  false,  147,  152 
Personality,  73 
Philosophy,  Doctor  of,  272 
Physical  training,  18,  42,  90,  107, 

132,  217 

Physician,  training  of,  77,  280 
Pie,  effects  of,  291 
Politics,  58,  61,  67,  74 
Pratt  Institute,  in 
Prevention,  education  as,  42,  50 

Private  education,  28,  297 
Professional  education,  99,   128 
Professional  organization,  23,  70 
Professional  schools,  86 

Reading,  33,  101,  165 
Religious  ecstasy,   216,   222,   230 
Repetition,  177,  180 
Research,    274 
Responsibility,  55,  62 
Revivalism,    patriotic,    144 
Roosevelt,  Theodore,   127 
Runkle,  Dr.  John  D.,  157,  265 
Russian  system  of  manual  train- 
ing, 116,  266 

Salaries,  10,  22 
Scholarship,  American,  279 


School  boards,  8,  15,  23,  40,  58, 

61,  68,  194 
School  buildings,  22,  40,  57,  165, 

3°i 

School  superintendents,  9,  63 
Scientific    thought,    influence    of, 

48 

Self-assertion,  216,  219,  229,  233 
Self-control,  31,  35,  138 
Sense  training,  18,  91 
Sexual  development,  218 
Sickness  in  schools,  21 
Small  classes,  23,  68,  92, 164, 170, 
„  25o,  307 
Social  education,  14,  24,  32,  56, 

134, 160, 189,  198,  207,  268,  286, 

3°6 

Society,   influence  of,    224 
Spanish  War,  60 
Specialists,  41,  271,  276 
State  and  individual,  140,  151 
State  control  of  education,  n,  302 
Strains  of  modern  life,  44 
Street  training,  14,  30,  225 
Superficiality,    181 
Superintendents,  9,  63 
Swashbucklers,  34,   155 

Taxation,  school,  29 

Teachers,  competency  of,  10,  57, 

65,  92 
Teachers,    responsibility    of,    40, 

70,  164 

Teachers,  training  of,  n,  23,  68, 

71,  76,  82,  262,  306 
Teaching  profession,   23,  67,   70, 

74,  307 

Technical  education,  109,  in,  124 
Technical  knowledge,  99 
Technological  education,  109,  266, 

281,  287 

Text-books,  36,  65 
Three  R's,  17,  31,  91,  101,  162, 

181,  191 

Thring,  Edward,  26 
Town  meeting,  45 
Trade  education,  46,  109, 118,  241, 

259,  269 


312 


INDEX 


Trade  guilds,  239 

Trade  unions,  243 

Training  of  teachers,  n,  23,  68, 

82,  306 
Truancy,  64,  66 

Uniformity,  37,  39,  182 
United  States,  meaning  of,  146 
Uppingham   School,    26 

Vocational  education,  24,  94,  118 


Walker,  F.  A.  (quoted),  193 
War,  evils  of,  154 
Washington,  Booker  T.,  85 
Will,  training  of,   138,   213,   232, 
Williamson  School,   112 

253 

Woodward,  Prof.  C.  M.,  266 
Writing,  33,  101,  166 

Young    Men's    Christian    Asso- 
ciation, 112 


Los  Angeles 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


SUBJECT 


0  FINE  IF  NOT  RETU 


NATION 


*NED  TO 


L9-50m-9,'60(B3610s4)444 


L  005  621  623 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FAC;u; 


UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNI 


LOS  ANGELIC 

Y.TRRARY 


